Review: United Airlines Economy Plus A320-200 San Francisco to Los Angeles

Review: United Airlines Economy A320-200 Los Angeles to San Francisco
Review: United Airlines First Class 757-300W San Francisco to Seattle
Trip Photos: Washington Photos
Review: United Airlines Economy Plus A320-200 Seattle to San Francisco
Review: United Domestic Club Lounge SFO
Review: United Airlines Economy Plus A320-200 San Francisco to Los Angeles

YOUTUBE: United Airlines: Los Angeles to San Francisco
YOUTUBE: United Airlines: San Francisco to Seattle
YOUTUBE: United Airlines: Seattle to San Francisco
YOUTUBE: San Francisco to Los Angeles


 

This is my last domestic United flight for a while, and if you have read all 3 of my last reviews from the start of this trip until now, I hope this has given you a good overview of what to expect on your next United flights.

So after our visit to the United club lounge, I decided to do some spotting around the international terminal since we could go freely to it.

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United 787-9
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United 787-9
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Lufthansa A340-600 and Eva 777-300ER
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United 747-400
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Singapore Airlines 777-300ER
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Singapore Airlines 777-300ER
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United 787-9
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Wow Air A330-300 and Eva Air 777-300ER
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Air New Zealand 777-300ER
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United Airlines 737-800 NG
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Tarmac view from international terminal
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Quite possibly the best photo of them all and the main photo of blog home page

After spending some time in the international terminal, we headed back to the domestic terminal and to our gate for our flight to LA. Once again, we had economy plus on this flight and the exact same seat, I believe too.

United Airlines

SFO-LAX Airbus A320-200

The economy plus seat is the exact same as what the normal economy class seat is, except in economy plus, each person has access to a power port and there is a little bit more legroom. I already reviewed the seat itself here so I won’t go into too much depth, other than to say that the back leather is too hard and thin, the seat is too slim, but the seat cushion is alright.

After boarding, the lights were dimmed as we pushed back and started our engines.

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Our departure runway was 1L and this time we did not have an hour long wait thanks to Obama like we did on the way up to Seattle. But we had a quick roll and turn to the north, then west, then south towards LAX.

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This time, the crew only served drinks, no snacks. I should note interestingly that there were two crew members serving us: one was a normal cabin crew member, and the other was the first officer. This will sometimes be the case where the first officer will come and help with the service on these domestic flight. I actually fell asleep for a little bit since I was very tired from the whole day. But thankfully I woke up just outside of Los Angeles.

As you can see below, there were some low altitude marine layer clouds floating in from the sea which is common in LAX in the late night and early morning hours.

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We had a smooth touchdown on runway 25L and a 10-minute taxi to the gate. It was around 12:10 AM by the time we got to the gate.

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Overall, I think after these 4 flights with United, there are some good things and bad things to get out of United. \

To start with the good things

  • the service provided is decent meaning the consistent offering of beverages and some food snack item.
  • the cabin crew, although not consistently the best like Southwest, are still well intentioned.
  • The first class seat on the 757 was definitely very wide and gave a lot of space and the leather was cushiony which I think helps make the passenger comfortable.

Now for the areas of improvement:

  • The economy class seat: the leather on that is too thin on the back and the headrest is a little too hard to be comfortable for a long period of time. That maybe due to the fact that the leather is new because the seat is new, but just something to notice.
  • The use of plastic in first class should never be a thing. Even if it’s for pre-departure beverages, using real glass will look much better than using plastic

All things considered, I would fly United again. I think they do well enough that I would not mind flying them domestically. As much as I love southwest more, I’m more biased to flying airlines where I can earn a status that means something. So United I have my gold status and therefore also a Star Alliance Gold status. Southwest I just get a whole bunch of points to use for free flights and that’s about it. But back to the point, There are far better carriers out there, but to get from point A to point B, I don’t mind flying United.

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