Trip Reports - Bwi-sea Mr

A quick, painless overnighter, 5000 BIS for USD220 a/i - how
can one resist, having a pocketful of 500-milers to burn?
Especially as I'd not flown UA in a month and needed to do
the crossword puzzle: sometimes I think my flying pattern
is a very expensive subscription to Hemispheres magazine.

UA 439 BWI DEN 1648 1841 320 2A Empower Y Ch9 Y

This flight was completely full. I can't see them cutting
service to BWI (which was one of the ugly scenarios
conjured up by the planned closing of the RCC) with the
demand this high.

The purser was a young black woman, rather curvaceous, with
a mellifluous British accent. She worked hard through the
flight and was uniformly agreeable.

Hot towels and hot (not just warm, unfortunately) nuts with
plenty of macadamias; seconds offered.

A double Courvoisier for starters.

The meal: short ribs or cheese tortellini; salad with real
Kalamata olives as the treat; ranch dressing; lemon
cheesecake.

The ribs were the usual pot roast thing, except the sauce
was spiked with a vast amount of five-spice. Decent mashed
potatoes and the remains of what had been a squad of sugar
snap peas, sadly lined up in a row, their lives taken by
reheating for a greatly extended time at high temperature.

The red wine was a Malbec by someone called something like
Furia. It was perfectly unmemorable, another of those wines
that make one think, ah, yes, wine, I knew it well.

The cheesecake was pretty decent.

I snoozed the rest of the flight, nudged awake by the FA
to put my seat up for landing.

UA 315T DEN SEA 1950 2139 733 2B Ch9 Y

We took off from B44. UA 315 out of LGA was coming in to
B46, way delayed, with 13 through pax - I have to give
operations credit for arranging for the rendezvous, which
which delayed our departure by almost half an hour but
presumably generated some goodwill for the inconvenienced
LGA pax, or perhaps more like prevented ill will.

Very deadpan cockpit, including a first officer whose
interactions with ATC were tinged with a singularly laconic
style or perhaps sense of humor and who announced, when the
seatbelt sign went off, that "you can now get out of your
seats legally."

Our FA, quite attractive considering she and the two other
Seattle-based FAs started working in the 1960s, provided
excellent service.

The meal was the inedible cold cut plate, consisting of
two kinds of rubber cheese (white and yellow), gristly
roast beef, factory ham, and a small fruit appetizer on
the same plate. Hors d'oeuvre: "premier snack mix" in a
cello pack; dessert: a packet of Walker's chocolate chip
shortbread.

I got most of my calories from Courvoisier, which I ran the
front cabin out of (they had catered two minis only); the
FA went to the back to pick up two more.

We played tag throughout with AS675, which left shortly
after us and landed just about the same time.

The only slight dissonance was the parade of coach people
going forward, sometimes a couple at a time, to use the
forward toilet.

Our FA refused a GTEM, saying that management didn't care
any more.

We landed pretty much on time, thanks to the modern miracle
of schedule padding.

My original plan was to go to 13 Coins and have a steak or
something and then get some shuteye out in bag claim, but
I was unaccountably tired and settled for a Baconator at
Wendy's followed by a snooze at the AS gates, some of which
feature banks of seats without arms. Baconators, of which
I'd never partaken before, are singularly mediocre, but
they're cheaper than the ersatz Chinese food next door or
the ersatz Mexican food at Qdoba two doors down. Vino Volo
had closed by the time I got there.

To the RCC at opening time, where I did FT until 0520, then
dashing out to the gate, shouting "time flies when you're
having fun" at the lovely blonde concierge, who chuckled.

I was the very last to board; the GA noticed me as I scooted
past; he said some kind of pleasantry or another about
having held my seat for me. I grunted thanks.

UA 696 SEA DEN 0540 0918 752 4D Empower Y/N Ch9 N

Of course, there was no overhead space at all by this
time; luckily there was room in the closet. The lanky
blonde FA reluctantly made room for my bag beside hers.
Just before pushback, someone came in from the wayback
and asked her to stow his bag there, which was greeted
with a smile and quick assent. Either I'd paved the
way for him, or he was cuter than I am, or both.

My seat was not prime: the Empower port had been pushed
in, and the overhead air vent also was damaged (I fixed
it, with my vast bank of experience about damaged seat
features).

The claim was made that Channel 9 was inop.

Great view of the Cascades peeking out from the clouds.

Breakfast offerings: a cheese omelet with sausage or the
fruit plate, which looked better than usual and now
contains pink grapefruit wheels.

Working the front were the lanky blonde, who was at least
efficient, though not so agreeable as her blondness and
pretty face would promise, and a matron, who took care of
her pax in a matronly way (not a prison matronly way).

My order for a croissant and Courvoisier for breakfast was
slightly misinterpreted as a croissant and Courvoisier
before breakfast, so at drink time the matronly one gave
me a big old loaded tray of food, saying, might as well
give you the whole thing at once (it's a barely 2-hr trip,
and there are 24 hungry mouths to feed). I told her to
take away the omelet, as I hadn't ordered it, but I kept
the fruit appetizer, which was quite good, featuring as it
did a couple slices of outrageously sweet melon.

Descent was quite bumpy, as one might expect; and the
aviation-buff frequent flyers behind me discussed the
novelty of our approach to the airport.

We landed close to on time, so, as I had an almost 4-hr
layover, I decided to try for the 1030 instead of the 1300.
A pleasant service director working the flight told me that
first was full, and it was a tossup whether I'd get on at
all, so I asked her to check on the 1020 IAD. Everything to
Dulles today is full, she said, but you could try for DCA.
So I visited B44 for the third time in 14 hours.

The agreeable gate agent accommodated a lot of standbys on
this flight; 3 in row 1 and a few others.

UA 484 DEN DCA 1035 1600 752 1C Empower Y Ch9 N
was UA 144 DEN BWI 1302 1831 320 1A

1C is in fact not a great seat. This makes the second time
I've been in it, and the lack of space was made up for, as
before, by the company, who was company - a rather glamorous
deadheading youngish black FA, quite agreeable to talk to as
well as look at. The other time, KathyWdrf and I had wanted
to sit together, and 1CD had been the only pair available.

The claim was made that Channel 9 was inop. I was inclined
to believe this, as this was the same equipment as the last
flight.

Another agreeable cabin crew. Up front, an age-appropriate
dyed-black-haired one and a short-haired youngish guy, who,
though polite enough to me, downright fawned on my seatmate.

Warm nuts in paper cups as loaded by catering.

The choices: Parmesan chicken breast or hot turkey sandwich.
I didn't see or smell any Parmesan chicken, but there was a
veritable parade of - as it turns out - cold turkey
sandwiches. These were composed of: toughish pretzel roll,
a slice of smoked turkey (okay), a slice of extremely tough
tomato (you might call it freeze-dried), two leaves of sad
lettuce, a slice of extremely spicy pepper jack, and a
cucumber strip. Out of these ingredients it was possible to
assemble an okay sandwich. Dijonnaise dressing on the side.

What was loaded under the guise of tomato bisque turned out
to be loaded baked potato soup (cheese soup with potato,
chives, and bacon). It was curdled but tasted okay.

So far the meal (on a fairly premium route) was worse than
that on the budget BWI-DEN outbound. But then, hark, what
fragrance wafts from yonder ovens? I gobbled my chocolate
chip cookie right down, and the FA promised me another. I
just remembered, on typing this next day, that she forgot
to do so.

We landed a few minutes early.

All in all, better than not flying. Quite nice, actually.
0.044/EQM, pretty respectable these days for a day's work.
By the way, I couldn't finish the lower right corner of
the crossword. First time in decades that I've missed more
than one letter.

Great report so far!

This flight was completely full.

A FT pet peeve! "Completely Full" is redudant. ;)

The purser was a young black woman, rather curvaceous, with a mellifluous British accent. She worked hard through the flight and was uniformly agreeable.

I have had this FA before on BWI-LAX. Very nice, although she did make the "We are primarly here for your safety" announcement.

Our FA refused a GTEM, saying that management didn't care any more.

:td: She should have graciously accepted it whether management looks at it or not (and I believe management does look at it).

Great report so far!

Thanks ... but that's it ... it was just an MR, after all.

A FT pet peeve! "Completely Full" is redudant. ;)

In my experience, there's a hierarchy of fullness on United, roughly:

"full flight" - tight in E-; may have middles used in E+

"very full flight" - most middles used in E+

"completely full flight" - completely full ... except maybe for
exit rows, F, and the last row of the plane.

What they call a truly completely 100% replete full flight varies.
On occasion I've heard them say "we are expecting to fill every
seat on this aircraft" or the like.

Thanks ... but that's it ... it was just an MR, after all.

You are correct and and I apolgoize. I did not mean to write that.

Again, great report.