LHR/MEL/Europe FF

Following posts in the United forum I am pleased to report a pretty perfect trip on United between the US and Australia last week.

Connection was in ORD - with the resultant delays usual for that airport, but my luggage made it despite a ten minute connection time (delays on the inbound aircraft followed by lack of gate followed by arrival into B22 and departure from C pier).

Once on the ORD-LAX flight I was approached by the gate agent who had a new boarding pass in hand, confirmed my name and asked if I was travelling alone? 'Yes' I replied, to which the response was 'Mr L/M/E FF, we'd like to invite you to enjoy our First Class cabin today'.

Sweet! Service was much better than the 767 I had on the LAX-ORD outbound. This time the cabin was clean and the service excellent. Choice between halibut or chicken for dinner - both hot! Sundaes with hot chocolate and cream for dessert.

Arrival into LAX - went to RCC and found tat upgrade had been processed. Time for quick duty free shopping and then a smoke at the outside terrace in T6. Nothing else to report - other than an argument between a black guy and some woman with long blond hair... something about who really controls the airport and how the guy was never going to leave his wife for her...

Anyways - I digress...

Boarding for SYD was easy - full cabin for the flight. Was seated in row 26 which, as seat guru points out, has the most leg-room of any J class seat. Fantastic.

Service was top notch. We had the pursar serving the cabin and at least three other FAs for meal services. Hot towels after takeoff, meal preferences taken (in order of elites), menus and the full works.

Food - pretty good as far as airline fare goes:

TO BEGIN

Shrim and Parma Ham
Cocktail sauce and fresh lemon

Fresh Seasonal greens
Roasted garlic red wine vinaigrette of classic Ceasar dresing

(nice salad, dressings were served from silver bowls)

MAIN COURSE

We have boarded additional servings of vegetables for our customers who are restricting their consumption of carbohydrates. Let your flight attendant know if you would like today's selection of mushroom, artichoke and pepper medley.

Braised short ribs of beef with red wine demi-glace
Sage and onion stuffing souffle and a California stir-fry with mushrooms

Dijon and panko-crusted chicken with roasted shallot sauce
Creamy Chedday potatoes au gratin and asparagus with lemon brown butter

(the sauce, as seems to be constant on UA these days, came in its own little pot on the side...)

New England clam chowder with shrimp

Choice of breads

DESSERT

International cheese selections
Havarti and Longhorn Cheddar cheese

Eli's Creme Caramel Cheesecake


MIDFLIGHT SNACK

Please help yourself to assorted treats between the two main meals

(Snacks were: pretzel mix, toblerone chocholates, fresh fruit, a hot turkey and cheese roll, the remainder of the Eli's cheescake and cheese selections not already consumed by pax for dinner)


PRIOR TO ARRIVAL

Fresh seasonal fruit appetizer
with breakfast breads, butter and fruit preserves

Scrambled eggs with onions and Hollandaise sauce
Black Forrest ham and oven roasted three potatoe hash

(As far as breakfasts go this was pretty good, the eggs were fine. Only one choice for breakfast but it was large and tasty)

Hot towels were served prior to breakfast along with fruit juices.

And that was the flight!

Connection down to MEL - no snack - just hot nuts and a drink of choice.

Any other questions, let me know.

Regards

WG

SDF_Traveler

Thanks for the trip report, always an interesting read.

Hint: I would like to see more of your OneWorld RTW F reports

Based on your B22 inbound I am going to guess UAx. I am glad that Chautauqua Airlines is now a UAx carrier which uses B22 along with C3/C4 in Terminal One. Beats the heck out of the F%@$ Concourse over in Terminal Two; there is a reason it's called the F Concourse and the reason has nothing to do with the fact it's between E and G

Always interesting to hear of ORD experiences, especially if the connection is sucessful! ORD is always a mess in my experience, even on a good weather day. Toss in a bit of wind, but heaven forbid you any thunderstorms within a 300 mile radius. /Rant On: As much as I love ORD as it was my first hometown airport, unless it is my destination I now avoid it at all costs. In the past few years not once have I or any direct family members been able to make a connection within reason. It's always one of four things:

1) RUN, you have 10 minutes! (no luggage at destination)
2) Your connection has already left, let's re-book. (what luggage?)
3) Convert my UA ticket to DL via CVG or; (Luggage ???)
4) Spend the night (Luggage in three days)

It's nothing against UA <or AA> (I love their DEN hub & operations, plus SFO), ORD is just too busy to reasonably handle the load between UA and AA /Rant Off

Congratulations on your F upgrade! I am glad to hear UA's domestic FC product this Mid-con flight was pleasant. I used to enjoy F my Sundaes on ORD-LAX/LAS/SJC/SFO/PDX and other routes when United was my carrier of choice.

Glad to hear the cabin was clean; of my UA flights in the past year I have seen the two extremes from a beautifully clean A320 to a grotty 757-200 with duct tape visible in many places. No UA F lately, just lucky to get E+.

I do miss flying UA and the great F service several years ago & the large # of widebody (including 747) domestic flights I took with three class configs including the first domestic revenue 777 flight I took in Business Class.

WG, It's my understanding the Mayor of LA appointed them as co-directors of LAX. They hired this Australian bloke at LAX as Manager of Customer/Passenger Service and he seems to handle all the airlines, you ever see him around?

How about that old 727 that's always parked there with a fellow with long hair that's always driving a cart around it on the ramp? Weird guy, but it is LAX I suppose.

The gates at LAX are based on the terminal #. Gate 1x in terminal 1, gate 2x in terminal 2, etc.. gate 8x in terminal 8. Gates in the 100 range are in Tom Bradley Intl Terminal (TBIT).

However, I usually see the two LAX co-directors talking or fighting with each other by gates in the 100 range and the area looks nice. Do you know what part of TBIT this is? TBIT looks like a dump on the inside in the airside area -- what part of TBIT do I always see the LAX co-directors in - I have yet to locate it?

Thanks for posting the menu and your experience of this flight. I read something on the United board several days ago about a FTer using UA's flight to SYD. Apparently no menu's, the towels were dry, and the service was described as sub-par economy.

I suppose you get your good crews and bad crews depending on the flight, the position pf the moon, and what employee benefits UAL enhances on that day. If I was a UA FA, I can't say I'd be the happy with UA at the moment as the pension went to the govt.

I remember when United was proudly touted as employee owned and I recall many memoriable flights. I even recall 737 and 727 flights in the evening between SDF-ORD when the FA's proudly provided a snack in F that might has well been a meal. SDF-ORD is a short ~300 mile flight and it is alll UAx operated now - seems to be a mix between Chautauqua and Air Wisconsin,

Last time I flew ORD-SDF I recall a "limited beverage service" because of the short flying time once airborne on an Air Wisconsin CRJ 50 seater. It used to be a full snack service on the evening SDF-ORD with a full beverage service in the Y cabin. The flight time has not changed, but now the best they can do is a "limited beverage service"

I apologize for the rants, er, enhancements UA has provided us as customers by popular demand over the past 10 years. I think I'll write United and tell them the limited drink service is too much, I think it would be better to just place a bottle of filtered water at each seat because other drinks such as Soda's have high fructoce corn syrup, many calories, and are bad for the teeth.

Anyone know who I can write this ketter to? (ok, rant officially off!)

Cheers!

SDF_Traveler