My escape from winter would probably be unexceptional, were it not for the sudden inclusion of my first ever AA flights. I'll only comment briefly on the (for me) run-of-the-mill UA flights.
I booked the UA portion of this trip on points in business class. I had to do this over the phone, since I needed to waitlist the return, but I'm happy to pay the UA over-the-phone fee for the good service I get from UA's SYD office. ... and because Qantas would charge me 3 times as much in fees just the fly to Perth, let alone the USA.
I arrived at the airport about 10:30am or so, but checkin was rather empty. ... There were only 5 yet to check in. Still plenty of time to zip through security and go to the lounge for a quick drink.
Just the usual short hop. Snack. Drinks. Cold nuts. My tray table is in terrible condition and the back of the seat in front is looking shoddy too.
The one unusual thing was the landing. It was an extremely good one, but that wasn't the unusual part. We landed towards the east. Almost every UA flight MEL-SYD, we go out over the ocean, loop around, and come in to land from the east, over the water. That adds about 5-10 mins to the flight.
At least this plane was in much better condition. Drink service was fine, but followed by semi-warm bread and crappy salad, then warm filet mignon with very undercooked beans. At least dessert was okay.
Movies were crap, except for Runaway Jury, which I'd already seen. ... on a UA flight a few years ago. I could sleep much, but I never can in this direction -- it's totally the wrong time of day. But I was in my favourite seat and had lots to do on the laptop. Luckily, this wasn't the UA840 plane: The interior was all in good condition. Water service was excellent, with our glasses being kept topped up all through the flight.
Breakfast was actually not bad. The omelette was properly heated, unlike dinner.
After customs, I went to the arrivals lounge. A while after my shower, there was only other person there. Nick and I chatted for a bit, discovered we were on the same flight to SEA, and went off to the RCC until our flight.
I was really tired by now, so had a couple of Amarettos and slept for much of the flight.
QF WP
Aug 6, 05, 2:12 am
Kremmen, good to see you taking another UA trip to SEA, but the TR was a bit brief...even for your standards. Say hi to Karen for me and I look forward to the hopefully more indepth return legs.
Kremmen
Aug 7, 05, 2:42 pm
Don't worry, QF WP, I'll post much more detail about the AA flights, esp. since this was my first ever AA mainline trip and we got upgraded on the int'l portion. :)
Kremmen
Aug 16, 05, 5:03 pm
Flights to the UK have been extremely expensive for this period, mostly ranging from US$1100-1400 for SEA-GLA. FlyingPenguin found a relatively cheap flight on AA, just over UUS$900, so we grabbed that. It would be interesting to see what AA's like, since we'd never flown AA mainline before.
All the DC9s in Australia were retired about 15 years ago, but these little things are still flying. AAmazing. AA reservations and then checkin weren't sure if the power wheelchair would fit through the hold door safely. Nor would either do anything about it. However, one AA agent, seemingly responsible for loading, said they would send it on another plane if there was any risk of damage. He came on board to tell us it made it in by an inch or so.
No audio, no video, very plain flight. The pay-for snack looked pretty unappealing, but we'd brought Vegemite sandwiches for lunch. The Tostitos were much better than UA's crappy pretzels.
Having never been to the AA terminals in ORD before, we had a good look around before heading to the gate. When we tried to board, the gate reader rejected our boarding passes. Another agent said she'd just printed them and gave those ones to us. I didn't even look at them until I got almost to the plane. They new ones didn't say 11A/11B. They said 4D/G. Business Class. Nice way to spend the main sector of my first AA trip.
There was someone already in 4G, but she happily moved to 4B and all was good. The plane was packed, so I guess they had to upgrade someone.
Let me start with the downsides of AA: No personal air vents mades it hard to be comfortable all the time. Mixed nuts were good, but not really hot. And where do they get the music they play during boarding and disembarking?? A CD of "World's Worst Cover Versions, Guaranteed to Destroy the Songs You Used to Like"?
On the plus side: The salad was decent. DVD players were given out, albeit with a large selection of uninspiring movies. (I watched "Analyze That", then switched to watching Dr Who on laptop.) The main meals we had, the veal and the spicy eggplant ravioli, were really quite good. The ice cream sundaes were so enormous that I wasn't sure I could finish mine, so I ordered a Bailey's and topped it up with the rest of my ice cream.
I found the seat to be more comfortable to sit on that a UA business seat, but less comfortable to try to sleep on.
Breakfast wasn't bad either and we soon landed into grey Glasgow. Once everyone else was out and the manual wheelchair appeared on the aerobridge, I took out bags out, along with the headrest for the chair. When I tried to return for FlyingPenguin, I was told by security officers that I could not step back on the plane. They said they would have to get someone to remove FlyingPenguin from the plane. I pointed out that they have no experience with doing so, but they were insistent. Fortunately, the Captain was nearby and informed the security people, very politely, that they were being stupid. He stated that he was "escorting" me aboard and they stood aside.
After being whisked through security, it wasn't long before we encountered what was to be the first of many accessibility issues in Glasgow: The disabled toilets at GLA are way too small. There is barely room to transfer someone from a wheelchair to the toilet, let alone fit baggage in there at the same time. The facility was cluttered with rubbish bins, making access a real hassle, while perversely being much less clean than I am used to. Luckily, we saw some people we vaguely knew and were able to leave our bags with them for a while. Upon getting to the 905 (Airport-City) bus, which Citylink had assured us was accessible, we found that it has a low floor, yet no ramp. Getting the power chair on board required several people to push/lift it.
Unfortunately, that seemed par for the course for Glasgow. Almost no streets have proper kerb cuts. Many have a lowered kerb, which is only uncomfortable and annoying, rather than totally preventing access, but quite a number of footpaths, even in the centre of the city, are simply impassable by wheelchair.
The shortest route from the bus stop to the Hilton includes a piece of road with no footpath at all. The more amazing part is that, once you get to the Hilton, there is no ramp or kerb cut from the driveway to the front entrance! I certainly expect better from a US chain, but we saw an inaccessible Starbucks later too, so it seems Glasgow is special this way. There were several ways to get to the Convention Centre from the Hilton, but none was truly wheelchair accessible. The nearest station is totally inaccessible. All of the walking routes involved some intersections with no kerb cuts, requiring going along the road rather than the footpath. Most ludicrous is the Convention Centre itself, whose main vehicle entrance has an inaccessible footpath which, during this time, was also being dug up!
The Hilton itself deserves mention. They gave us a room on the executive floor, right near the lounge, indeed right behind the service area where they bang bottles together regularly! That room should be reserved for deaf guests and we were thankful of being able to move to a quiet room a couple of doors down. The lounge was good, with a free internet PC. Breakfast included some hot food. The pool, etc, were good also.
After a few days, we moved to the Marriott (points for one day, Priceline for two). Pokey little rooms, bathroom ceilings so low I could stand on tip-toe in the bath and hit my head on the ceiling.
Thursday came and it was time to go back to the airport. Glasgow has security people who get your E-ticket printed out before you check in and then ask tens of pointless questions before letting you check in. The interesting part of this was that my printed ticket marked me as a child! This might have been why the tickets were as cheap as they were.
Upon checkin, they tried to move us to a bulkhead, so it took a while getting our original seats back. The checkin agent informed us that their system ignores passenger requests and moves disabled pax to bulkhead seats. I've never seen that sort of stupidity anywhere else but Qantas.
Well, this was certainly a big difference to business class: Small meal portions, small cold rolls and, for the first time in my life, an international flight which charges for alcoholic drinks. At least the meals were hot and tasty, which is the main thing. Movies were crap, so I spent my time listening to music, writing this report, and wishing there were personal air vents, since it's way too hot next to the sunny-side window.
Being early and with a long wait, we breezed through all the incoming procedures quickly, of course. Sat in a quiet gate lounge letting the laptop recharge, mostly.
We went to the gate early and heard one CSR tell another that our flight was "a mess". We were second in line when they started manning the gate and finding that "mess" did indeed mean overbooked, we volunteering. Unfortunately, there were enough missed connections for this flight to make up for the ones waiting over from the previous flight, so we missed the bump.
As far as I could see, we went out with one empty seat in Y. Uneventful flight, with Tostitos and drinks as before.
Rejuvenated
Aug 20, 05, 6:46 pm
Nice report! Thanks! ^
Kremmen
Aug 31, 05, 6:43 pm
When our papers came through for our Vegas trip, a freebie from a timeshare presentation, we were on Alaska and staying in some dubious motel. As we'd already experienced how bad Vegas motels can be last year, we booked a couple of nights at the Tropicana instead.
Seat allocation wasn't possible over a week before the flight, so we arrived with the hope of a bump. Alaska must do things differently to other airlines, as they said they were overbooked when we checked in and couldn't allocate seats, yet we'd have to go to the gate to be put on the bump list. Okay, that's not too bad, except FlyingPenguin then got the dreaded SSSS on her non-boarding pass!
The TSA were even more clueless than usual in this situation. They apparently had no clue how to handle a SSSS'd person in a wheelchair, so they started by leaving her sitting next to an x-ray machine for about 10 mins. Eventually someone came along to get her and do the special extra screening -- as opposed to the ordinary extra screening they do to her anyhow -- and we were able to go to the gate. ... By which time, they were down to only needing a maximum of one volunteer. As it happened, they didn't need any volunteers in the end and managed to squeeze two non-rev standbys on.
Some volunteers from earlier flights in the day, as well as volunteers for this flight, were put in first class, but we missed out on that. We probably needed to have been earlier, plus a less incompetent TSA would certainly have helped our chances.
The guy in 6A was pleasant. He'd been working at Seatac and was on his way home to Vegas to go to university. However, not everyone was like him. One woman got on with the common overly large rolling bag, hefted it up into the overhead opposite us and found it wouldn't fit end-in. Ignoring all the other items, she simply spun her massive bag 90 degrees, causing other items to fly out. Mr 6A's camera was amongst those items, hitting FlyingPenguin in the chest, before bouncing 2 or 3 times on the floor of the aisle and rolling into first class. With no comment at all about the potential damage to other passengers or their belongings, she simply sat down in 7C.
Other than having to put up with the selfish and dangerous behaviour of the ***** in 7C, we didn't feel bad being in economy, considering that "first class" just gets a cookie and alcohol.
We enjoyed the Tropicana, which was good value like last year. The place is getting really old and worn, but the rooms are large, the pool is great, and the staff are pretty good. I'd received a discount card from them because of staying last year, so we got a rate of US$45+tax/night, rather than the usual US$49 ... which is good value anyhow. After initially giving us a smoking room, they managed to find us a non-smoking room on the 17th floor, which had a very similar view to last year.
We spent time with friends for much of our main day there, used the pool, found some free wireless access to check email briefly, and left after too little sleep for our horribly early flight. This time there was a bit more space and they gave us three seats together. We grabbed a couple of yummy danishes at Starbucks to use up FlyingPenguin's Starbucks card and have something for breakfast.
This was a totally uneventful flight and we played a game on my laptop while eating danishes.
Kremmen
Sep 30, 05, 1:20 am
Amazingly, I was ready early and left early for the airport. About 2 miles from the airport, traffic on 405 suddenly stopped. Totally. People started putting their heads up, like prairie dogs ... Standing on their door sills, trying to see what was up ahead. The next mile took about 30 mins, at which point we got to the remains of the smash and made it to the airport with plenty of time.
Usual prompt departure. Pleasant flight, chatting to a guy on his way to Vegas for a cycling conference and then watching an episode of Alias on my laptop.
On arrival in SFO, I saw that 863 wouldn't be leaving until 11:05 and went to the RCC for a while, until about 15 mins before the SQ lounge was due to open. When I got around there, it was open early! However, the woman at the desk stared at my boarding pass and the following discussion followed:
Her: "You can use the Red Carpet Club, Sir."
Me: "Yes, I know I can, but I prefer your lounge."
Her: "We have a full flight tonight."
Me: (looking around empty lounge) "The UA flight boards at 10:30, so I'll be out in 45 mins."
And, with that, she scribbled down some note on a piece of paper and let me in. The food was quite good as usual, and it's always great to have a shower before a long flight.
The departure delay was intentional: Flight time was expected to be only a bit over 13 hours and they needed to leave late to avoid arriving before the Sydney curfew ends. This was an excellent flight. Very professional cabin crew upstairs, all of them male. The service was very friendly, the hot towels were hot and the bread rolls were actually hot too. Salad was pretty good, as were the mushrooms and feta, but I ignored the salmon and ham. Being sick of the boring filet mignon variations, I tried the chowder, potato and leek with smoked turkey sausage. The FA who took my order said my choice was his favourite. ... and it was indeed really excellent: Delicious, but not overpowering.
The movie selection was crap. The best movie, Mr and Mrs Smith, rates about 6.6 on IMDB ... and I'd already seen it. I tried "The Interpreter", but it dragged somewhat. "Never Been Kissed" was predicably soppy. The mediocrity of the movies made it easy to read a newspaper, enjoy dinner, use the laptop, etc, without missing anything important. I slept from about 3am (SFO time) until 11:30am, about 10 mins before breakfast service started.
Mushroom omelette with red pepper sauce, potatoes, onions, pork sausage and bacon was okay. Croissants were better.
We thundered in from the West over houses before landing just 3 mins after curfew ends.
Astoundingly, they have expanded the "security" checkpoint to get back into the departures area of the terminal, providing much more space and room for more than one queue! I was the first there and through very quickly, then on to the NZ lounge for a shower and some breakfast.
Just the usual SYD-MEL tag, with a bored FA serving cold nuts and drinks.
Got into MEL, bought some duty free booze (esp. Galliano as a bribe for my chauffeur du jour) and the immigration lines were huge. One of the most sinister terrorist operations on the planet, the TSA, had smashed the lock off one of my bags and not bothered to secure it in any way afterwards, but my belongings appeared to have survived.
QF WP
Oct 8, 05, 12:09 am
Kremmen, sorry it's taken me a while to get back to Trip Reports and pick up where I left off.
I love yuor Itinerary...fly from Australia vis USA to go to Scotland. Sounds like you and FlyingPenguin had a great time. Does that mean you even have some status on AA now :o (did you and FlyingPenguin pick up an AA Platinum Challenge??)
Kremmen
Oct 10, 05, 11:41 pm
I love yuor Itinerary...fly from Australia vis USA to go to Scotland. Sounds like you and FlyingPenguin had a great time. Does that mean you even have some status on AA now :o (did you and FlyingPenguin pick up an AA Platinum Challenge??)
It was an awfully poor itinerary, in terms of value, due to the astronomical cost of trans-atlantic tickets this summer. I could have flown from here to Europe for about the same as it cost from Seattle. :(
We'd have need twice the travel for a Plat Challenge and didn't even look into them. I guess we should have done the Gold one for the tiny bonus. ... As it was our first time on AA, chances are we'd never use the status.
QF WP
Oct 10, 05, 11:44 pm
Ah, yes, that would make sense not to go for AA Plat or Gold Challenge if you weren't going to use the benefits and was a low discount economy class that didn't earn many EQM's.
Kremmen
Oct 10, 05, 11:48 pm
If I could get AA miles for flying on QF on red e-deals, I'd do it in a flash and give QF's horrible programme the flick for good.
QF WP
Oct 10, 05, 11:50 pm
So I presume you posted the AA flights to your QFF account (assuming they earn anything in there). Just keep getting enough in there for some free flights around Australia...and await Virgin's FFP to be unveiled.
Kremmen
Oct 19, 05, 2:55 am
So I presume you posted the AA flights to your QFF account (assuming they earn anything in there).
Nope. Posted them to my AA account. I already had over 25k pts there from non-flight activities, such as opinionplace surveys and other online offers that I found through FT.