TEX277

London Heathrow T1 – San Francisco
United Airlines
UA 955
777-200
First Class
Seat 2A

I arrived at LHR T1 just under two hours before departure and soon located United’s First Class and Global Services check-in area. This was my first time departing T1 with United and I also realised, that despite my former 1K status with UA, this was the first time that I had departed LHR in F with them! The F/UGS check-in is afforded some privacy from the main check-in area by the erection of frosted (IIRC) glass screening. I was greeted by the agent, who quickly issued my BPs, took care of my checked baggage, pointed me in the direction of ‘Fast Track’ security and explained how to get to the Star Alliance lounge. Credit to BAA, it must have taken just a little more than 1 minute from saying farewell to the check-in agent to successfully navigating security.

Once airside I did a little duty-free shopping and then made straight for the Star Alliance lounge. Holding a First Class BP I was entitled to take a guest into the lounge with me. I made a half-hearted attempt to spot any suitable looking solo travellers to guest in but left it at that.

I was greeted at the reception desk and, after having my ID and BP checked, directed to the First Class section of the lounge. The lounge itself was certainly nicely presented. I liked the fact that having some dividing wooden panels avoided the open-plan loss of privacy. I located the Champagne and then headed for the computers. I could not log-on and asked one of the lounge attendants. She went off to check and then came back to inform me that the internet was not working today.


I was browsing the food offering and had just spotted a smoked salmon bagel as the lounge attendant approached and asked if I would like a sausage or bacon roll! My order went in immediately and I returned to my seat eagerly awaiting the arrival of my bacon roll. It arrived and I was a little shocked to note the amount of fat hanging out of the roll. It certainly detracted from the presentation. The sauce (the two small rolls came only with a small cup of red) was inserted before all was devoured.


Around an hour and a quarter after I had entered the lounge, I departed. As mentioned earlier, the lounge is nicely presented. However, I would not really have liked to have had to spend much more time in there.


By the time I had arrived at the gate, most of the passengers were already onboard, meaning that there was no queuing for me. I was straight onto the aircraft and settled straight into seat 2A. I was greeted and offered a glass of Champagne, OJ or water and opted for the latter. I was dismayed to hear the captain thank everybody for turning up not just only time but early which gave them the chance to get away early. With a 4hr 30min connection in SFO, I was hoping for a delay!!! We taxied out to 27L, accelerated down the runway, climbed and then headed for SFO.

Another first for me - I decided that I was not really that hungry on departure (those bacon rolls had certainly filled that hole!) and informed the cabin crew that I would prefer to sleep some more before eating lunch which was to be served soon after departure. The crew were understanding of this and allowed me to sleep whilst they catered for the rest of the cabin. A cabin, it has to be said, that was full to capacity despite the fact that just the day before plenty of availability was still showing.

Anyway, I managed to sleep for two to three hours before waking and asking the crew to prepare my lunch.



The remainder of the flight was filled with either watching the flight info/map or films. I had wanted to see Gran Torino and Taken when they were on at the cinema but never got around to it. However, despite not normally finding anything of interest in the UA First video cassette tray, they were both there!


Unfortunately we landed early, so early that our gate was still occupied. Soon enough I was off the aircraft and heading for US Immigration. I was the fourth person off the plane and probably (considering the time that I had to kill between my connection) around tenth (it was a very short walk to Immigration) to arrive at Immigration. It looked like an Emirates flight had arrived just before us and as usual, I got totally shafted being processed.

Despite being tenth out of over 300 passengers on my flight, despite looking back and seeing the queue snaking out of the queuing system, I was one of the last 5 people get through. They were taking people from the back of the queue and sending them down to the US Citizen desks once they were clear. The two agents for whom I was queuing only ended up processing me from my flight!!! I was not really in a jovial mood and initially this was not really helped by the Officer looking through my passport, seeing all of my US entry stamps and then asking if this was my first time in the US! However, I could not help a bit of a chuckle when he noted that I was going to Vegas, circled the ‘Are you carrying over US$10000’ question and sternly asked me to clarify that I was making the correct declaration. I wish I was carrying over US$10000!

I had spent 30 minutes waiting to get through Immigration, I know I had time to kill but it was still infuriating, and was expecting my priority tagged luggage to be waiting for me at reclaim. I was surprised when I got there and could not see my luggage! It took a further 15 minutes for mine to come out. I’ll be honest and confess to watching my bag go past me for one more lap of the carousel before picking it up and heading to Customs. The customs agent picked up on the circled currency question and asked if I had more than US$10000. I denied it and was sent on my way.

As I was connecting on US, the UA lady would not take my recheck bag and directed me over to US in T1. US took the bag and I headed off to kill some time. The AirTrain around SFO certainly helped with that mission. There are some good views of the airfield and the nearby hills. They looked fantastic as you could see the clouds coming over the top and then descending down the hills.