United Business, PEK-SFO-YVR
Jul 29, 2005, 5:34 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: Chicago
Programs: UA 1K, AA Gold
Posts: 3,640
United Business, PEK-SFO-YVR
I needed to make a quick personal stop in Seattle (on my way from PEK to SYD), so ended up traveling on UA flights and using my SWUs to travel in C class, marking my 10th United Intl Business flight.
I have only flown intl C class on UA and US – never on any foreign flag – so mundane flights to others like UA in C actually are interesting to me. When I actually burn miles (right now earning enough to keep 1K is difficult enough), perhaps I will have a nice SQ F report, ala KLuau88. Also, this report is long because I like details. If you don’t like details, feel free to move on.
My SWU for this segment cleared 72 hours in advance, but given it was a B fare, I was not particularly worried. I flew to YVR because the fare was materially less expensive, and I didn’t mind spending a night in one of my favorite cities.
United’s schedule to Hong Kong and China has been questioned many times on this board – the flights depart SFO in the early afternoon, arriving in the evening, and depart from Asia mid-day, arriving SFO mid morning. This means that the big birds layover in Asia for up to 20 hours, which seems to be done for optimizing SFO connections and providing a convenient schedule for business travelers.
Personally, I find UA’s PEK-SFO flight terribly inconvenient – a 12:15pm departure and 8:55am arrival in SFO means the day is basically shot if you are going anywhere other than SFO. Even if you are going to SFO, you end up salvaging a half-day at best. AC’s 4pm nonstop to YVR seems much better timed (and allows AC to do an immediate turn of the aircraft in PEK). In fact, I would have flown AC (yes, even in Y) – but it cost double the UA routing when I booked.
I managed to make the most of my day in Beijing by waking up early, spending a few hours at the office, and even getting a 20 RMB ($2.40) haircut. The bad news is I didn’t jump in a cab until 2 hours before departure and I was worried about running late as the flight was showing Y0. But I live in the Lido area, close to the Beijing Airport Expressway, so we arrived at the airport by 10:40am, to my relief.
The departure hall was a zoo of people and it seemed like there was a huge line to enter customs (which you need to pass through to reach the check-in counters), but then it became clear that it was a shoving match and there was no line. I was through in 5 minutes.
The UA area was mobbed with people – I now realized why the flight was sold out in Y weeks ahead of time – seems like a Princess cruise had just completed in Beijing and everyone was returning home. Fortunately I found the F/C line which was very short. There was a bit of a stir at the ticket counter going on – a passenger bound for Mexico had no US visa and was protesting because he didn’t need a visa to get from Mexico to the US, and would not accept the answer that he needed a visa to transit the US from China.
Anyway, I was checked in quickly and then proceeded to a long line for immigration, and then visited the Air China lounge. I’d been to the other lounge before (wasn’t impressed), so decided to visit the Air China lounge which was even worse. Lots of packaged food that didn’t look appealing, but the water bottles and leaf-based tea were good. The lounge is just a big room with seats.
I headed off to gate 14 for our departure – I recall back in 2001 flying UA PEK-NRT we used the same gate – but lots has changed for China since then. I remember back in 2001 the flight was about 50% in C and about 30% in Y, whereas today all cabins were fully booked. Lots of cruise passengers seemed to be traveling paid C (saw them in the C class check in line, and the advance seat map showed a fairly full C cabin, so there weren’t many if any op-ups).
Now, onto the crew. We all like to make fun of UA’s transpacific cabin crew, but I think they normally provide friendly service in spite of some of their physical qualities, and given their 30 years of seniority, they know what they are doing, so I feel really safe. Let’s just say that today’s flight met the normal standard, and it seemed even the Mandarin speakers were really senior. I wonder if PEK is popular just because of the block hours, or because of the layover. Seems like one of the cheaper but less exciting layover destinations.
Anyway, I was seated in the rear main deck cabin. I didn’t ask for a particular seat, but I’m finding I actually prefer the main deck because it’s more airy, and also has more F/A coverage per pax (normally 5 work downstairs C, vs. 2 upstairs) so service is quicker. The service is much better coordinated upstairs, though, and the upper deck F/As also seem to be more junior.
Pre takeoff beverages (OJ, Champagne, water) were distributed. The boarding process seemed to go very smoothly because they started early and used two doors. The cabin was very hot from the warm day in Beijing, must have been even warmer in Y, opening all the air vents didn’t make a big difference. We pushed away right on time at 12:15pm, and were airborne by 12:30pm – where we made a sharp turn to the right and commenced a slow climb. Not sure if the slow climb was due to ATC or due to the plane being so heavily loaded. The wing was flexing – this is fairly normal in windy conditions or when the fuel tanks are heavy – was quite a sight to see. Our route today took us south, then east, over Korea and Japan (we directly overflew Tokyo and had a view of Mt Fuji), then south of Anchorage and a northerly approach into SFO.
Meal orders were taken before takeoff, because of all the non-status cruise pax (who no doubt paid more than me for their C seat), my order (and that of my seatmate) was taken VERY early. Because I am not a true flyer talker, I did not look at the manifest to count the number of 1Ks on board (it’s an interesting stat to know, and I’d love to see the manifest, but I’m not going to be caught looking). It seems to be custom that UA will take the orders from a pair of seats at once to make the bias less obvious.
Service shortly began, with cold towels and warm nuts. I think the cold towels were a nice touch due to the warm day. I had a good view of the galley and watched the process of water glasses being assembled. Let’s just summarize – “refill Aquafina bottles from the tap”. Given no one drinks tap water in China, I really hope the water was safe, but I didn’t risk it, sticking with sparkling water the whole flight.
Since Aquafina doesn’t even seem to be sold in China, and no non Aquafina bottles were seen, seems like UA didn’t load ANY bottled water and relied on leftovers from the inbound, and the F/As were left to improvise. Another view of this is that the F/As just hogged the Aquafina for themselves – but I think it’s probably a combination of both, with the root cause being sufficient water wasn’t loaded. This is surprising (because the fuel cost of uplifting water from the US would be high) and concerning (because you don’t pay for a Business class ticket to drink tap water).
Here is the menu for today’s service:
To begin
Savory chili prawns, toasted goat cheese on focaccia and parma ham with cantaloupe
Lemon remoulade
Fresh seasonal greens
Oriental vinaigrette or Caesar dressing
Main course
(vegetable selection: broccoli and pumpkin batons)
Filet mignon with red wine and mushroom demi-glace
Mashed potatoes with spinach and corn and a carrots, zucchini and squash sauté
Pecan crusted breast of chicken with paprika cream sauce
Sauteed spaetzles and fresh spinach
Baked silver cod with yellow garlic sauce
Fried rice with scallops and Chinese seasonal greens
Dessert
International cheese selection
Brie and Cheddar cheese
Peach lattice pastry
Whipped cream and vanilla sauce
Midflight snack
Please help yourself to assorted treats between the two main meals.
Hot sandwiches or noodles are available upon request.
Prior to arrival
Broccoli and cheddar cheese frittata with roasted red pepper sauce
Crispy bacon and sautéed chicken sausage with a fresh fruit appetizer
Or
Fresh seasonal fruit plate with creamy yogurt
After refills of the nuts were offered, I tried 3 times to get more LaCroix, each time waiting 5 minutes and then asking again, because the F/A forgot my request. It really annoys me when F/As are proactive at topping off wine but show no interest in refilling other beverages.
The appetizer was nicely presented and quite tasty – the greens also had other vegetables such as grape tomatoes and yellow peppers – and the ham with cantaloupe was bundled with rosemary, so very flavorful. Bread rolls (onion or pretzel) were offered, and given the lack of bread that’s normally available in Beijing, these were very tasty. Too bad no seconds on the bread were offered.
I had chosen the cod for my main dish (I really like silver cod and black cod) and it was superb – I recall having a similar dish on UA ex-HKG and really enjoyed it as well. The greens even had mushrooms added in.
I had two glasses of the 2002 Staton Hills Syrah (California) and it was fantastic. It was excellent and I could have enjoyed a lot more of it, but I minimize drinking on long haul flights. Wines in China are incredibly expensive (I think due to duties) and rare (beer is the customary drink), so I hadn’t had a good glass of wine in 4 weeks! They also had the 2003 Louis Bernard Cotes-du-Rhone Villages on offer, and I think for the whites they had a French and California (Rancho Zabaco Dancing Bull Sauvignon Blanc) on offer as well.
The dessert trolley came through, and because I didn’t want to look like a pig, just went with the peach pastry – which was really tasty and artfully displayed – had about half of a peach in it. I passed the offering of Port and finished off with some oolong tea, which was so strong it looked like coffee. I recall having my own pot of green tea on PEK-NRT back in 2001, but that must have been because of the destination, not the origination.
For the next few hours, I alternated between working, sleeping, and reading – being a procrastinator saving my work for the end of the flight – since it was daytime in China and unlike the rest of the pax I was heading to Australia the next day, I was not interested in adjusting to US time. I did respect the darkness of the cabin and lowered my 3 shades once the main meal was complete.
The snack basket was set up and had a variety of goodies – instant noodles, ham/turkey sandwiches, cucumber/cheese sandwiches, kit kat bars, and whole fruit. I had lots of veggie sandwiches and bananas since I was hungry, and supplies were plentiful.
Towards the end of the flight, prior to breakfast, we had a bunch of interlopers from Y, some which would raid the snack cart. Some of the F/As were proactive at shooing the interlopers back to steerage, whereas others didn’t care. Since F/As take rest breaks this meant at other times the cabin was better patrolled. About 3 hours prior to landing, a call was made for medical assistance, but it must have been minor because we heard nothing else.
90 minutes out of SFO, around 7am local time, breakfast was served to a tired cabin. I was actually dozing so I missed out on the hot towel service and was never given a replacement. As is custom, glasses of juice were handed out, followed by a tray with croissant (no jam or butter was available) and fruit bowl (melon, kiwi, grapes), and then later the hot dish, which seemed like a quiche but was very tasty. After some begging I managed to get more juice, and without begging my tray was cleared away.
We crossed the coast about 20-30 minutes prior to landing but it was cloudy so the view was minimal. The landing was quite interesting because there was very low cloud cover. At one point, we were flying about the clouds but could see hilltops in the near distance above the clouds – but we broke through the clouds about 1 minute prior to touchdown so it wasn’t as thrilling as other landings in fog I’ve had. We parked at the gate at 8:40am local, 15 minutes early, and surprisingly I breezed through immigration, customs, and baggage claim.
Overall the flight was a good experience, and the service deficiencies were no biggie.
I then headed to the domestic terminal RCC to make some calls, and checked out the food court. The food court looks fantastic – especially if you want to get a proper meal – there are Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, etc. options. Where I feel it does a poor job is in the snack department – the loss of Jamba Juice and Noahs Bagels (in spite of the rude HMS-Host employees who worked there and hated customers) is a bit disappointing. The loss of Saruya Japanese is not disappointing – that place was simply despicable – seemed like they were more focused on serving TV dinners than ethnic food.
I then realized my YVR connection was in the international terminal. Well, duh, it’s international, but I never made that link. Fortunately, I took the shuttle bus from the domestic terminal so I didn’t have to reclear security again. The inbound flight was delayed, so our 10:45am departure didn’t board until around 10:30am or so, and then we had some mechanical issues, as well as a runway hold, so didn’t take off til 11:30am.
This was a non-Shuttle 737-300, and I was in 2A so as comfortable as I could be on a 737. Service was drinks and snack mix, no lunch service (the 1pm SFO-YVR serves lunch, go figure) – the pax in row 1 must have eaten 6 snack bags, but I wasn’t hungry so didn’t really care. I slept most of the way, but the view was amazing due to the clear day (the fog in SFO had burned off) – the nicest part was overflying Seattle at cruise altitude!
YVR’s terminal looks like a mountain lodge, and was quite enjoyable to arrive in. Baggage claim was a bit slow, but other than that no complaints. I spent the night at the Vancouver Hyatt (which I snagged on Priceline) prior to driving down to Seattle for some quick personal appointments and my onward flight to SYD. The Hyatt is well located but the Marriott Pinnacle (which also shows up on Priceline) has nicer rooms, but the staff is friendly at the Hyatt, and I really enjoyed my short stay.
Hope you enjoyed this trip report. Next installment: SEA-SFO-SYD
Happy travels.
I have only flown intl C class on UA and US – never on any foreign flag – so mundane flights to others like UA in C actually are interesting to me. When I actually burn miles (right now earning enough to keep 1K is difficult enough), perhaps I will have a nice SQ F report, ala KLuau88. Also, this report is long because I like details. If you don’t like details, feel free to move on.
My SWU for this segment cleared 72 hours in advance, but given it was a B fare, I was not particularly worried. I flew to YVR because the fare was materially less expensive, and I didn’t mind spending a night in one of my favorite cities.
United’s schedule to Hong Kong and China has been questioned many times on this board – the flights depart SFO in the early afternoon, arriving in the evening, and depart from Asia mid-day, arriving SFO mid morning. This means that the big birds layover in Asia for up to 20 hours, which seems to be done for optimizing SFO connections and providing a convenient schedule for business travelers.
Personally, I find UA’s PEK-SFO flight terribly inconvenient – a 12:15pm departure and 8:55am arrival in SFO means the day is basically shot if you are going anywhere other than SFO. Even if you are going to SFO, you end up salvaging a half-day at best. AC’s 4pm nonstop to YVR seems much better timed (and allows AC to do an immediate turn of the aircraft in PEK). In fact, I would have flown AC (yes, even in Y) – but it cost double the UA routing when I booked.
I managed to make the most of my day in Beijing by waking up early, spending a few hours at the office, and even getting a 20 RMB ($2.40) haircut. The bad news is I didn’t jump in a cab until 2 hours before departure and I was worried about running late as the flight was showing Y0. But I live in the Lido area, close to the Beijing Airport Expressway, so we arrived at the airport by 10:40am, to my relief.
The departure hall was a zoo of people and it seemed like there was a huge line to enter customs (which you need to pass through to reach the check-in counters), but then it became clear that it was a shoving match and there was no line. I was through in 5 minutes.
The UA area was mobbed with people – I now realized why the flight was sold out in Y weeks ahead of time – seems like a Princess cruise had just completed in Beijing and everyone was returning home. Fortunately I found the F/C line which was very short. There was a bit of a stir at the ticket counter going on – a passenger bound for Mexico had no US visa and was protesting because he didn’t need a visa to get from Mexico to the US, and would not accept the answer that he needed a visa to transit the US from China.
Anyway, I was checked in quickly and then proceeded to a long line for immigration, and then visited the Air China lounge. I’d been to the other lounge before (wasn’t impressed), so decided to visit the Air China lounge which was even worse. Lots of packaged food that didn’t look appealing, but the water bottles and leaf-based tea were good. The lounge is just a big room with seats.
I headed off to gate 14 for our departure – I recall back in 2001 flying UA PEK-NRT we used the same gate – but lots has changed for China since then. I remember back in 2001 the flight was about 50% in C and about 30% in Y, whereas today all cabins were fully booked. Lots of cruise passengers seemed to be traveling paid C (saw them in the C class check in line, and the advance seat map showed a fairly full C cabin, so there weren’t many if any op-ups).
Now, onto the crew. We all like to make fun of UA’s transpacific cabin crew, but I think they normally provide friendly service in spite of some of their physical qualities, and given their 30 years of seniority, they know what they are doing, so I feel really safe. Let’s just say that today’s flight met the normal standard, and it seemed even the Mandarin speakers were really senior. I wonder if PEK is popular just because of the block hours, or because of the layover. Seems like one of the cheaper but less exciting layover destinations.
Anyway, I was seated in the rear main deck cabin. I didn’t ask for a particular seat, but I’m finding I actually prefer the main deck because it’s more airy, and also has more F/A coverage per pax (normally 5 work downstairs C, vs. 2 upstairs) so service is quicker. The service is much better coordinated upstairs, though, and the upper deck F/As also seem to be more junior.
Pre takeoff beverages (OJ, Champagne, water) were distributed. The boarding process seemed to go very smoothly because they started early and used two doors. The cabin was very hot from the warm day in Beijing, must have been even warmer in Y, opening all the air vents didn’t make a big difference. We pushed away right on time at 12:15pm, and were airborne by 12:30pm – where we made a sharp turn to the right and commenced a slow climb. Not sure if the slow climb was due to ATC or due to the plane being so heavily loaded. The wing was flexing – this is fairly normal in windy conditions or when the fuel tanks are heavy – was quite a sight to see. Our route today took us south, then east, over Korea and Japan (we directly overflew Tokyo and had a view of Mt Fuji), then south of Anchorage and a northerly approach into SFO.
Meal orders were taken before takeoff, because of all the non-status cruise pax (who no doubt paid more than me for their C seat), my order (and that of my seatmate) was taken VERY early. Because I am not a true flyer talker, I did not look at the manifest to count the number of 1Ks on board (it’s an interesting stat to know, and I’d love to see the manifest, but I’m not going to be caught looking). It seems to be custom that UA will take the orders from a pair of seats at once to make the bias less obvious.
Service shortly began, with cold towels and warm nuts. I think the cold towels were a nice touch due to the warm day. I had a good view of the galley and watched the process of water glasses being assembled. Let’s just summarize – “refill Aquafina bottles from the tap”. Given no one drinks tap water in China, I really hope the water was safe, but I didn’t risk it, sticking with sparkling water the whole flight.
Since Aquafina doesn’t even seem to be sold in China, and no non Aquafina bottles were seen, seems like UA didn’t load ANY bottled water and relied on leftovers from the inbound, and the F/As were left to improvise. Another view of this is that the F/As just hogged the Aquafina for themselves – but I think it’s probably a combination of both, with the root cause being sufficient water wasn’t loaded. This is surprising (because the fuel cost of uplifting water from the US would be high) and concerning (because you don’t pay for a Business class ticket to drink tap water).
Here is the menu for today’s service:
To begin
Savory chili prawns, toasted goat cheese on focaccia and parma ham with cantaloupe
Lemon remoulade
Fresh seasonal greens
Oriental vinaigrette or Caesar dressing
Main course
(vegetable selection: broccoli and pumpkin batons)
Filet mignon with red wine and mushroom demi-glace
Mashed potatoes with spinach and corn and a carrots, zucchini and squash sauté
Pecan crusted breast of chicken with paprika cream sauce
Sauteed spaetzles and fresh spinach
Baked silver cod with yellow garlic sauce
Fried rice with scallops and Chinese seasonal greens
Dessert
International cheese selection
Brie and Cheddar cheese
Peach lattice pastry
Whipped cream and vanilla sauce
Midflight snack
Please help yourself to assorted treats between the two main meals.
Hot sandwiches or noodles are available upon request.
Prior to arrival
Broccoli and cheddar cheese frittata with roasted red pepper sauce
Crispy bacon and sautéed chicken sausage with a fresh fruit appetizer
Or
Fresh seasonal fruit plate with creamy yogurt
After refills of the nuts were offered, I tried 3 times to get more LaCroix, each time waiting 5 minutes and then asking again, because the F/A forgot my request. It really annoys me when F/As are proactive at topping off wine but show no interest in refilling other beverages.
The appetizer was nicely presented and quite tasty – the greens also had other vegetables such as grape tomatoes and yellow peppers – and the ham with cantaloupe was bundled with rosemary, so very flavorful. Bread rolls (onion or pretzel) were offered, and given the lack of bread that’s normally available in Beijing, these were very tasty. Too bad no seconds on the bread were offered.
I had chosen the cod for my main dish (I really like silver cod and black cod) and it was superb – I recall having a similar dish on UA ex-HKG and really enjoyed it as well. The greens even had mushrooms added in.
I had two glasses of the 2002 Staton Hills Syrah (California) and it was fantastic. It was excellent and I could have enjoyed a lot more of it, but I minimize drinking on long haul flights. Wines in China are incredibly expensive (I think due to duties) and rare (beer is the customary drink), so I hadn’t had a good glass of wine in 4 weeks! They also had the 2003 Louis Bernard Cotes-du-Rhone Villages on offer, and I think for the whites they had a French and California (Rancho Zabaco Dancing Bull Sauvignon Blanc) on offer as well.
The dessert trolley came through, and because I didn’t want to look like a pig, just went with the peach pastry – which was really tasty and artfully displayed – had about half of a peach in it. I passed the offering of Port and finished off with some oolong tea, which was so strong it looked like coffee. I recall having my own pot of green tea on PEK-NRT back in 2001, but that must have been because of the destination, not the origination.
For the next few hours, I alternated between working, sleeping, and reading – being a procrastinator saving my work for the end of the flight – since it was daytime in China and unlike the rest of the pax I was heading to Australia the next day, I was not interested in adjusting to US time. I did respect the darkness of the cabin and lowered my 3 shades once the main meal was complete.
The snack basket was set up and had a variety of goodies – instant noodles, ham/turkey sandwiches, cucumber/cheese sandwiches, kit kat bars, and whole fruit. I had lots of veggie sandwiches and bananas since I was hungry, and supplies were plentiful.
Towards the end of the flight, prior to breakfast, we had a bunch of interlopers from Y, some which would raid the snack cart. Some of the F/As were proactive at shooing the interlopers back to steerage, whereas others didn’t care. Since F/As take rest breaks this meant at other times the cabin was better patrolled. About 3 hours prior to landing, a call was made for medical assistance, but it must have been minor because we heard nothing else.
90 minutes out of SFO, around 7am local time, breakfast was served to a tired cabin. I was actually dozing so I missed out on the hot towel service and was never given a replacement. As is custom, glasses of juice were handed out, followed by a tray with croissant (no jam or butter was available) and fruit bowl (melon, kiwi, grapes), and then later the hot dish, which seemed like a quiche but was very tasty. After some begging I managed to get more juice, and without begging my tray was cleared away.
We crossed the coast about 20-30 minutes prior to landing but it was cloudy so the view was minimal. The landing was quite interesting because there was very low cloud cover. At one point, we were flying about the clouds but could see hilltops in the near distance above the clouds – but we broke through the clouds about 1 minute prior to touchdown so it wasn’t as thrilling as other landings in fog I’ve had. We parked at the gate at 8:40am local, 15 minutes early, and surprisingly I breezed through immigration, customs, and baggage claim.
Overall the flight was a good experience, and the service deficiencies were no biggie.
I then headed to the domestic terminal RCC to make some calls, and checked out the food court. The food court looks fantastic – especially if you want to get a proper meal – there are Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, etc. options. Where I feel it does a poor job is in the snack department – the loss of Jamba Juice and Noahs Bagels (in spite of the rude HMS-Host employees who worked there and hated customers) is a bit disappointing. The loss of Saruya Japanese is not disappointing – that place was simply despicable – seemed like they were more focused on serving TV dinners than ethnic food.
I then realized my YVR connection was in the international terminal. Well, duh, it’s international, but I never made that link. Fortunately, I took the shuttle bus from the domestic terminal so I didn’t have to reclear security again. The inbound flight was delayed, so our 10:45am departure didn’t board until around 10:30am or so, and then we had some mechanical issues, as well as a runway hold, so didn’t take off til 11:30am.
This was a non-Shuttle 737-300, and I was in 2A so as comfortable as I could be on a 737. Service was drinks and snack mix, no lunch service (the 1pm SFO-YVR serves lunch, go figure) – the pax in row 1 must have eaten 6 snack bags, but I wasn’t hungry so didn’t really care. I slept most of the way, but the view was amazing due to the clear day (the fog in SFO had burned off) – the nicest part was overflying Seattle at cruise altitude!
YVR’s terminal looks like a mountain lodge, and was quite enjoyable to arrive in. Baggage claim was a bit slow, but other than that no complaints. I spent the night at the Vancouver Hyatt (which I snagged on Priceline) prior to driving down to Seattle for some quick personal appointments and my onward flight to SYD. The Hyatt is well located but the Marriott Pinnacle (which also shows up on Priceline) has nicer rooms, but the staff is friendly at the Hyatt, and I really enjoyed my short stay.
Hope you enjoyed this trip report. Next installment: SEA-SFO-SYD
Happy travels.
Last edited by das; Jul 29, 2005 at 5:41 am
Jul 29, 2005, 6:27 am
#2
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: BOS
Programs: AA PLT, UA 1P
Posts: 217
Nice trip report. Regarding the YVR flight departing from the international terminal, only the morning departure uses that terminal on a regular basis. Most of the other departures leave from the domestic termnal. Enjoy your trip to Sydney!!
Jul 31, 2005, 1:07 pm
#3
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Chicago
Programs: AA Plt, FB Silver
Posts: 848
Originally Posted by das
... It seems to be custom that UA will take the orders from a pair of seats at once to make the bias less obvious. ...
Anyway, great report! Looking forward to the rest.
Jul 31, 2005, 4:21 pm
#4
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2003
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Posts: 15,648
Originally Posted by lhj1723
Nice trip report. Regarding the YVR flight departing from the international terminal, only the morning departure uses that terminal on a regular basis. Most of the other departures leave from the domestic termnal. Enjoy your trip to Sydney!!
I suspect that the flight through the Int'l terminal is for connecting pax.
nice report though. No more PEK-NRT-SEA? (don't fly UA so I don't know if they stopped the PEK-NRT flight) Seems more logical that way.
Jul 31, 2005, 4:55 pm
#5
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Posts: 33,857
Good report. However if you want snacks, I find the Burger King by gates 74-75 most agreeable. There's also a Pete's Coffee and a Subway outside security which also work wonders.
Aug 1, 2005, 9:21 pm
#6
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 42,041
Originally Posted by das
Personally, I find UA’s PEK-SFO flight terribly inconvenient – a 12:15pm departure and 8:55am arrival in SFO means the day is basically shot if you are going anywhere other than SFO. Even if you are going to SFO, you end up salvaging a half-day at best. AC’s 4pm nonstop to YVR seems much better timed (and allows AC to do an immediate turn of the aircraft in PEK). In fact, I would have flown AC (yes, even in Y) – but it cost double the UA routing when I booked.
As for AC, I don't know whether you speak from experience or are mere speculating that the grass is greener, but I did PEK-PDX on AC earlier this year and was none too impressed.
For starters, they fly ancient 767s with depressing interiors and IFE that's even worse than UA (the lack of any airshow at all in Y hurts). Plus, 767s are slow and ETOPS constrained. My friend flew UA889 on the same day that I returned from YVR and his flight was only 20 minutes longer than mine, in spite of the fact that he passed within 200 miles of YVR.
Stopping in YVR maybe cool if you actually have the time to stop over, but connecting there was excruciating. After you get off the plane, you basically crisscross the entire terminal in one big bureaucratic scavenger hunt that eventually dumps you inside the precleared US area. Then, since you're going to SEA, you get to walk another 5-10 minutes past the nearest AC lounge to the satellite that the small planes use, where you'll have the opportunity to join a bunch other exhausted folks from your previous flight and wait for a long time (the SEA people were blessed with a slightly shorter layover than us, but still over 2 hours).
Another problem was that AC's flight was full pretty much every day I wanted to return so, while my ticket permitted free changes, H class was very hard to come by. UA, by contrast, has been great at keeping Q and V open on 888/889 and 857/858 all year (even on my flights which ended up going out full or close to it).