Back to the Bunny
Yes, I got out of bed late – it had been one hell of a busy weekend (and disastrous in other ways too – with printers dieing and cameras following right behind them - but that’s besides the point).
Once again, all my trash was packed and I went to check out. After given my receipt, I found there was a shuttle bus about to leave (which was jumped on).
After going to the other Hyatt in the O’Hare area to drop off a passenger, we drove to O’Hare were my luggage was unloaded and I made my way in and to Premium Check in to have a discussion with Mr Chicken (The Check in Machine). A quick look and my original assignment of 22F had been blown out of the water… but instead upgraded with one of the best exit rows in the United fleet – Row 16, Seat F.
Now that’s what you call an upgrade! Heck, whilst service may be crap, it’s practically infinite legroom.
After dumping and tagging my luggage it it was off to security and it was straight through. Alas, my flight was going to leave from back end of nowhere - C25.
Through the brainwashing tunnel in B-C concourses
Heading to C25
As time was running short – I couldn’t be bothered to head to the lounge, so it was straight to the gate with about 10 minutes left before boarding.
Judging by the queues, I thought I stood a chance of a bump, but alas, no one was biting. Oh well. 16F is pretty hard to turn down, so I joined the line with the gate lice when boarding was called, watching all the Zone 4’s getting turned away from boarding
Soon enough, Star Golds were called to board, and after a missy wanted to try and take two mini rollaboards on a plane, I negotiated around her and made my way aboard.
UA547 Chicago O’Hare International - Las Vegas McCarran International
United Airlines, Boeing 757-200, Seat 16F, Economy Plus
1514 Miles flown, 1514 Miles Earned
Channel 9: On 
The pictures
I was one of the first Y class victims to arrive, and found to my delight that I had the perfect exit row seat with an acre of space in it. Which is very nice. As the plane loaded up slowly, seats started filling until push back where the seat in the middle was taken.
A good sign on a 757...
... and legroom to boot.
The fight attendants did their check that everyone was ok to do the safety tasks in an emergency, and everyone was nodding away (and very few verbal yes’s sadly). However, I really don’t think the family in-front didn’t actually understand what the flight attendants were saying (or pointing at come to that).
The Merger video appeared with Jeff again (without Rhapsody playing in the background) and then the usual video played. A slow taxi around O’Hare due to the weight of traffic (15 minutes or so), but soon enough the plane turned onto runway 28 and the P&W engines roared into life, taking a full load into the sky.
The flight was pretty much light chop all the way, with a drinks service arriving 50 minutes into the air. But that’s not the worst part as some idiot decided it would be fun to self upgrade himself into E+ about 20 minutes into the air
Of course, did the flight attendants protect E+ at all? Surprisingly no. Very disappointing. Naturally I made sure I had to step out a fair bit on him and land my size 10’s on his feet. Oh ah, and his sales pitch for Sear’s Mytag/Whirlpool Black Friday plan didn’t make any sense to me… But what do I know about selling stuff? I’m just a simple Systems Administrator/Alternative Photographer…
But I’m not a bitter vindictive person at all
. Beside, I had a few umm… Alternative Picture sets to process up. So what if they’re of an… alternative nature
Anyhoo… almost an hour in the flight attendants finally got around to serving drinks – and I’m sorry, that is horrendously slow to get to Row 16 on a daytime flight even with chop. I partook in a coffee which was lukewarm. Not good, but drinkable – which helps I suppose. There was also a snackbox/fresh breakfast snacks service that I also failed to partake in.
Funny how "Coffee and Coke" turns into just a coffee...
As we went over the various ATC centres, the turbulence was all over the shop, with a few airpockets to boot (causing a few interesting drops making the crowd go woo, and me grabbing the side of a seat) – which made the flight interesting -if not smooth at all – infact more of a moderate turbulence than anything.
Eventually the flight begun to smooth out – but by the time cloud cleared there was nothing but red desert with an hour to go… before it went choppy again and clear.
Bump... chop...
In fact chop and clear seemed to be the message of the day. With Channel 9 on, at least I could guess which times were reasonable to go to the little room when needed.
Over Las Vegas bay...
The Strip not too far away
Vegas Baby!
Soon enough we begun our decent, and landed at Las Vegas, and taxing to the D gates where we were released
Overall – Whilst the service was sluggish and incomplete, it was better than nothing. The E+ gift was a nice present from United was very welcome, however I’d wish they would protect the product better…..