sadiqhassan

United Airlines Dubai – Washington Dulles IAD C Class (no pictures, sorry!)
January 1st 2008

Dubai to Washington UA977 B777-200
Gate to Gate:

Sch Dep / Arr 0030 0644
Re-Sch Dep / Arr 0915 1428
Act Dep / Arr 0957 1532

Firstly, a huge thank you to an FTer who donated two SWUs to me. It made my trip exponentially more comfortable. ^

Secondly, before booking this trip, I found myself asking “why would anyone book themselves to Asia on a (gasp!) American carrier?” I have experienced domestic US travel and I didn’t set my sights much higher for International travel. However, I was able to get a great deal, YYZ-IAD-LHR-DXB-IAD-YYZ leaving in the height of peak season (Dec21st/Jan1st) for US$980 including taxes. The next best option was Swiss at US$1410. So United it was. In the back of my mind I was thinking what I could trade for some SWUs on FT, but I was lucky enough to get them for free

This flight would be my longest ever scheduled flight at 15h 7m and I was eagerly anticipating it but at the same time wondering how I would survive for so long. I was preparing to fly Y as my upgrade had still not cleared a week before departure. However, about six days before departure, to my relief, it cleared. I get rather restless so I made sure to assign myself an aisle seat so that I would not bother anyone else when I get up. The only aisle left for pre-assignment was 13H.

Departure

I checked in online spot on 24 hours before departure and the flight was showing on time. The United online check in facility is excellent. It is simple, easy to use and functional. I have not flown United in a really long time and was surprised by how good their website is. UA folks – before complaining about your website, take a look at some of the others!

I kept monitoring the flight status and about 20 hours prior to departure the flight was listed as delayed to 09:15. I was never notified and if I had not checked, I would have shown up at the airport at 10pm like many other passengers did.

I called United in Dubai who first insisted that the flight was on time. After arguing for a bit he agreed that it was delayed but REFUSED to book me on a later connecting flight to Toronto. He simply told me “don’t worry, they’ll take good care of you in Washington.” Yea right. I called back and threw a fit until I was booked on a 445pm flight – 2 hours after I was supposed to have landed in Washington. I checked online and realized that there was a 355pm flight from IAD which I should have no trouble making. I decided I would go to the airport and see if the flight was on time before asking to be moved to this flight.

The silver lining of the delay was that I got to spend New Year’s at the beach rather than at DXB. The flight also looked empty, so I was looking forward to a nice quiet, uneventful flight.

I arrived at Dubai around 0700 for the 0915 flight. The airport is quite confusing – I hadn’t travelled ex DXB on any airline except EK (which has its own check-in area) for a while. The UA flight did not show up on the board and I had to ask where to check in – Zone B. My bags were scanned and I was greeted by this man who seemed very excited to see me, that’s always nice. He asked me God knows how many security questions before putting a sticker on my passport and sending me on my way.

Check-in took forever, probably because people needed to be rebooked onto new connecting flights. I finally got to the desk after about 30 minutes. The poor guy had no idea what was going on. I really felt bad for him. I think he was probably a third party employee as he had trouble with the computers. He asked me where I was going and printed out my boarding cards. I really wanted to get home as early as possible so I asked if the flight was on time. He said that it was, so I asked if I could be moved to the 3:55pm flight. The guy said sure and printed me out a boarding card for my original 7:58am flight. When I showed it to him he looked even MORE confused than he did before. After a painful 30 minutes he finally gave me a boarding card for the 3:58pm flight. He said that there is no way that he could through check my bags but that “it should not be a problem since everyone has to claim their bags in Washington.” This turned out to be the biggest mistake of the trip.

I wanted to tour the new Terminal 3 but by this point time was running out so I just went to the *A alliance lounge. It was small and had a limited selection of food but was pleasant enough. At about 08:15 the agent came and asked me to leave as my flight was “closing.” Since my boarding card said Boarding at 08:30 (for a 09:15 flight) and was about 5 minutes way I told her I would leave soon. She then started to get irritated and told me the flight would not wait for me. I thanked her but remained put. At 08:25 she said the flight is about to close and United was not responsible should I miss my flight. I grudgingly left and arrived at a packed gate area. The agents told me boarding will commence at 09:00 so I walked right back to the lounge

Boarding was a mess; there was no priority boarding, everyone’s hand luggage was checked and there was general mayhem. Boarding was by a bus, no idea why since there were many gates that remained unoccupied.


Cabin

Here is where the world of difference between Asian and American carriers begins. The cabin was dim and unwelcoming. The seats were torn and tattered. The plane was clearly very old and not properly maintained and the seats had not been cleaned properly since the last flight.

The flight ended up being full in all 3 classes; there were a lot of non revs and standby passengers.

Seat


Call me crazy, but I really like the “recliner” style C seats that you find on United. I find them easier to sleep on than other airline’s lie-flat seats and I really appreciate that all seats face forward. The seat itself is quite comfortable for sitting.

However, unfortunately my footrest would not retract at all. I tried everything to get it out. I summoned an FA for help and the conversation went something like this:
“oh you don’t know how to work the seat?”
“well.. I followed the signs but...”
“now now, you see it’s simple you have to look at the buttons. You can’t just do whatever you want.”
“I did but...”
“no no, no excuses, I’ll do it with you don’t worry. You’re a smart kid you’ll figure it out.”
“but...”

After 10 minutes of her trying, and much to my amusement, she finally gave up in a huff and called another crew member who also tried but in vain. The purser also gave it a try before giving up. The purser is like “oh well” and walked off. One of the FA’s felt bad and offered her carryon to be used as a footrest but used my own instead as it would have felt weird to use hers. I appreciated the sentiment though.

To continue my chain of good luck, my carryon decided to rip open and I had to hold it together with string for the rest of my trip

Catering

Dinner was served first even though the flight departed at 0915am, which was odd but you can’t really blame UA for that.

The menu was as follows:

To Begin

Fresh Seasonal Greens

Blue Cheese Dressing of Classic Vinaigrette

The salad was fresh and of a good size. However, not enough dressing was put on the salad.

Main Course

Chicken paupiette with spinach and cheese with lemon ginger sauce
Potatoes noisette with braised pumpkin and snow peas

or

Machbous-style lamb
Seasoned basmati rice and marag okra

or

Express Dine
Today’s express dine features a free entree salad topped with a poached salmon steak and served with lemon cream dressing and white chocolate raspberry cheesecake for dessert

I didn’t know what paupiette was but I chose the chicken anyway. After spending almost a month in India, and eating okra 3 times a day, I never wanted to see, let alone eat, the blasted thing again. It was DELICIOUS. One of the best airline meals I have had in a while. The portion wasn’t large but it was cooked well and served at the right temperature. Part of me wants to give credit to the caterers in Dubai but United deserves some credit


Dessert

Cheese selection

Or

White Chocolate raspberry cheesecake

The cheesecake was again small. It was pretty average otherwise.

Between Meals: There were some “snacks” left in the galley (a few kit kat bars and some chips that were soon gone.)

Prior to Arrival

Main Course (felt a bit weird to be having breakfast at 4pm!)

Scrambled eggs with chives

Or

Beef sausage wand sautéed fresh mushrooms

Fresh Seasonal Fruit Plate

The crew couldn’t decide if the eggs were omelette or scrambled eggs which I found quite amusing. They tended to alternate between the two. The eggs were not bad. Again, I found the portion to be on the small size. But then again I am used to flying Emirates where they feed you till you are sick in C.

All meats were halal which was great for me.
I don’t drink so I can’t comment on the wine selection but it seemed to be large and good.


IFE
Embarrassing. While many carriers have some sort of AVOD by now, UA is still sporting a TINY IFE screen with about 8 channels (some of which were not working). The video quality was also quite poor which made the movies unwatchable. I chose to stick to the moving map display.

Cabin Staff

The service was... unremarkable. After reading comments on FT, I was expecting some horrific crew but they weren’t awful. Granted they weren’t anything special; they served the meal promptly and, with the exception of the lady who felt the need to lecture me on how to use the seat, were generally courteous.

Arrival

Almost 18 hours after getting to the airport in Dubai, I finally landed in Washington at 3:30pm. I knew that my chances of getting on my original 3:55pm flight were gone. I called UA and was rebooked to the next flight. However, I now realized the consequences of not being through checked. While the ‘connections’ area was right next door to arrivals, I had to take a shuttle to the main terminal to reclaim my bags which took a really long time.

At baggage reclaim by bags were the first out which was great but then customs decides to pull me over. They take away my passport (not sure what that has to do with customs since I had already cleared immigration but I felt that arguing would get me into more trouble) and had to sit there quietly for about 45 minutes. I was then asked a few random questions and was let go. They didn’t even open my bags or ask me any customs related questions which I found odd.

By this point I was a bit irritated. The last flight of the day, the 7:00pm, was showing Y0. I found a ticket counter where I explained my situation. The women had the audacity to lecture me on how I should have FORCED the agent in Dubai to through check my bags and that she had never heard such ‘nonsense’ (about them refusing to do it) in her life. Luckily, I was able to get on the 7pm.

Overall

Firstly, I can’t really complain since I got to fly in C for the price of a Y ticket. However, if I had paid for C class I would have been extremely disappointed. Most other carriers up their level of service for their longest routes but UA did not seem to do any such thing. The trip wasn’t awful per say but I did feel like the C cabin was catering more to upgraders and non revs than paid C pax.

For other people it might not make too much of a difference, but IMHO the biggest and best change they could make is to refresh the cabin. For some reason, a clean and fresh cabin makes me enjoy my flight significantly more as compared to a dingy and dirty one.

I have not flown any other US carrier long haul in a while so it is quite possible that UA is on par with others. However, it is leaps and bounds behind when compared to European and Asian carriers and even AC. At the end of the day, however, UA got me to my destination in relative comfort. Nothing disasterous went wrong so I would still choose them in the future if the price was right in Y. For C, I'd probably look elsewhere unless UA's C pricing was similar to other airline's Y+ pricing.

I also learned the hard way that transitting in the US is simply not worth it!

Cheers,
__________________

Flyingfox

Thanks for the report.
The crew sounds to be of poor quality.
The lady who treated you like a child who knows nothing was truly condescending! And then the imbicile was proven wrong and didn't admit her fault!
The purser who just "gave up" on your leg rest is an incompetent twit.
Thanks for giving us all yet another reason not to give United our money until they improve their service and product.
I'm glad you didn't pay for that ticket as C!

patgarrett

Thanks. Had that FA spoken to me in that patronising way I'd have probably felt like offering her a Liverpool Kiss.

Ndugu

Thanks for the report. I'm not looking forward to flying on United once CO joins *A.

Arnur

Great trip report, thanks a lot. I have not flown UA in a long time, so I´m wondering whether you could give us some more info on the issue of international transit at IAD: it was my understanding that you need to re-claim your luggage anyway, clear customs and then re-check it when transiting from an international flight (even when your destinations is outside of the USA). From your report it sounds as if there´s a different procedure at IAD. Could you elaborate?

Eastbay1K

If your bags are tagged as connecting through IAD to another destination, you use the midfield immigration and customs, where you claim your bag and then drop it right back off. If your bags are tagged to IAD, you have to use the main immigration/customs, and then go back to the C/D gates for your next flight.

Arnur

Thanks a lot, this sounds certainly much more convenient then what I´m used to when flying via the USA (mostly CO via EWR).

hairpeace

Good report though I actually don't mind flying UA Business

sobore

Thanks for the nice report! I agree the recliner seat (when clean) is not too bad.

roadkit

You should have insisted on compensation for an inop footrest in C on a 15 hour flight.

That is unsat - as is the treatment you received from the FAs.

UCBeau

Good TR..I've had the (mis)fortune of flying UA C on most of my long haul flights over 2007/2008 and I have to say, your TR is very close to what I've experienced. Perfectly ordinary crews who just don't care and give the basic level of service..dirty interiors..but a surprisingly comfy C seat. I too enjoy the "old" C seat for sleeping but am also dismayed at how often one or more components are broken.

Still, it is what it is.

SQ4000

Thanks for sharing your experience, nice report.

As one of the great airlines (though at times it does not seem that way) I had mixed experiences flying with UA, there are some truly wonderful people working for UA and also have some truly awful people. The problem for UA is that most of us remember only the truly awful experiences. I have flown in all three classes on UA, the only consistent services were in F SFO-SYD return, it was very good but not excellent. I had a few wonderful flights in UA Y both on the ground and in the air, but also some bad flights in C. One memorable experience was in Y (EWR-LHR). When the drinks came round after take off, I ask for a tomato juice, I was given a whole can, that was nice, and what a surprise then I ask if I could have some Lea & Perrins or Tabasco to put in it, the answer from the frosty lady was “certainly not!”, even I did say ‘please’. The ground services were similar story; some UA ground staff will go to that extra length for you, even when in Y, and others treat you as an intrusion to his/her routine. I am sure there are many members in this forum works for UA, please do something before it’s too late.

mjcewl1284

I never ever thought I would ever read this.

Nice trip report (and don't take this personally), further reinforces why I won't be flying UA anytime soon!

sadiqhassan

I emailed United on Jan 2nd but still have not received a response

[FWIW, I received a $250 coupon. But it cannot be used for travel starting in Canada, where I live.]

Cheers,