Booking the Trip: 5,336 Miles of Flying to Nowhere
Review: United Airlines Embraer ERJ175 First Class Los Angeles to Seattle
Review: Delta Sky Club Seattle Concourse A
Review: Delta Airlines 737-900ER Main Cabin Seattle to Detroit
Review: Delta Airlines CRJ-400 Main Cabin Detroit to Houston
Review: United Club Lounge Houston Terminal E
Review: United Club Lounge Houston Terminal C (North)
Review: United Airlines 787-9 First Class Houston to Los Angeles
YOUTUBE: United Airlines: Los Angeles to Seattle
YOUTUBE: Delta Airlines: Seattle to Detroit
YOUTUBE: Delta Airlines: Detroit to Houston
YOUTUBE: United Airlines: Houston to Los Angeles
Welcome back to the last flight in this weekend of flying to nowhere. After spending 7 hours in the United Club Lounges in Concourse E and then Concourse C, I went back to concourse D to check out some of the international flights before heading to my gate.
Afterwards, I went over to my gate in the E concourse. Here is the beauty that will be taking me to Los Angeles.
IAH-LAX
Boeing 787-9
1/28/18
After boarding, I went forward and turned right into the First class section. Now these seats are United’s Polaris business class seats and are usually stocked with the Polaris amenities, however because this aircraft is being used on a domestic flight, I will address the product as “first class”, however do note that any comments on the hard product also applies to United’s Polaris Business class experience.
Now to the seat, the seat itself was well padded and plush to sit in. I only had 3 hours in this seat, but for longer flights where I have sat in this seat for 15-16 hours, it’s still comfortable, so the seat padding is nice. The back padding is also plush and well padded. The headrest is slightly hard, but it makes a nice pillow when in the flatbed position.
If you look at the photo above of the seat itself, you’ll see that to the left that is where the power port and USB are. There are pros and cons to the position of both there. On one hand, its a more practical position to have a charging port for a device that will be in your lap or hand and will be out of the way of the walking area, however, on the other hand, it is highly inconvenient to reach to plug something in or unplug.
Now for the seat front, there is lots of legroom, as should be the case in a seat that lies flat, however, the one downside is that the food cubby is small and you have to crumble your feet to fit them down there. The only seats I know with the larger foot cubbies are the bulkhead seats.
Also to the left of the seat where the center console is, there are controls to control the angle and incline of the seat and a remote to control the tv. The seat controls were intuitive.
All in all, when flying within the US, I personally think this is the 3rd best seat. I give the second best seat to the reverse herringbone seats that AA has on their 787-9s and Delta on their A330s that they use domestically. And my favorite domestic seat is the JetBlue closed door mint suite in rows 2 and 4 of their transcontinental A321s.
A few minutes after having a seat, one of the crew members came around to ask me what I would like for my pre-departure beverage and I opted for sparkling water of course. He had a smile on his face throughout the whole flight when talking to us and servicing us which I really liked.
UA had a nice ocean blue mood lighting which I liked.
We left the gate about 15 minutes behind schedule and had a 10-minute taxi to the runway.
Finally, we turned onto runway 15L and immediately began our takeoff roll. The views were great of the setting sun.
Here’s a picture of the front cabin from the back. You” notice that row 4 is missing a window so keep that in mind when selecting seats for those of you who like window seats.
The view out the left side of the aircraft was also very nice with the setting sun.
A short while after returning to my seat, service began with a beverage and a ramekin of assorted nuts consisting of almonds and cashews. Unlike my flight from Los Angeles to Seattle, the nuts were actually warm this time. For my beverage, I went with sparkling water and lemon.
After that was cleared up, the flight attendant working our aisle came by and offered a choice for dinner between a burger and a chicken cobb salad. I went with the former.
Overall, consider me disappointed. The burger was tasty indeed, but United could have done so much better than this. On a domestic first class flight, of flights that offer chickens to pastas to steaks and then United decides to offer a burger with a patty that probably came out of the freezer. The salad leaves were dry but the vinegar dressing added some taste to the salad leaves. The tastiest part of the meal was probably the raspberry cheesecake which was actually very good. So I was glad to end the meal with something that was delicious. Also while the service was going on, after everyone had been served their meal, the crew working my aisle was proactive with offering drink refills which is great as some tend to disappear until the end of the service but ours was walking throughout the cabin ensuring everyone was well taken care of. The meal service was done 1 hour and 10 minutes into the flight which is also great! The only negative aspect of this whole part was the burger itself for the most part.
The rest of the flight was rather uneventful and I just worked on my laptop transferring photos and videos from my phone to laptop to make room for the arrival photos and videos.
After working for a while, I noticed we began to slow down a little and the landing lights turned on, which meant we were arriving soon.
As usual for an approach into LA, we flew over Ontario airport.
And then we passed by downtown LA.
We had a smooth, early touchdown onto runway 25L and a taxi to our gate 72 where we would park.
Finally, we parked and disembarked fairly quickly.
And here’s one last look at this beauty before I leave and she flies off to Melbourne.
Overall, I had a pleasant flight with United. The crew working our aisle was great, you cannot ask for a better seat, and the flight was smooth throughout the whole time. The only downside was the meal. In domestic first class, I am not expecting a well-done steak or a fancy lobster thermidor like what is served on Singapore Airlines, but United could certainly do better than a burger that probably came straight out of a freezer before this flight. But even then, I know I’ll be back on United soon being that they are my loyalty airline, but I expect better food next time.
This is the last of this trip report. Sorry for drawing it so far out over 2 months, but I got very busy in between. In a few months, it will be travel season again and I am excited for what I have in store for all of you. Stay tuned and Cheers!