I flew IST-LAX today after a two day stay in Istanbul, now I’m sitting in the RCC waiting for my red-eye back home.

I arrived at the airport 2.5 hours before departure, and no more than 30 minutes passed between leaving the metro station and clearing passport control. I did use the priority/*Gold entrance security screening and check-in lanes but didn’t attempt to use the fast-track passport control line, the regular line was pretty short at that point. BTW, when asking the check-in agent about the lounge, he responded ‘next week’ with an apologetic smile.
After some last minute shopping and snacking, I arrived at the boarding gate 90 minute before the flight. Only a short line, my passport was checked only twice, and only a few standard questions were asked. The boarding gate was still pretty empty at that point and did fill up later, but not to the point where it appeared overcrowded. Boarding was a cattle call with no discernable attempt to provide priority boarding services.

Based on prior recommendations I had selected 20D using online check-in the previous evening. As it turned out, CC was only 2/3 full and 20J/K also were empty, so I switched over after the doors closed because I preferred the window and still had an empty seat next to me. The middle rows 19 and 20 were completely empty throughout the flight. For those interested in a window seat because of the views, try to avoid rows 17 and 19 since they are missing a window.

The flight was uneventful, I slept through a substantial portion. As others have noted, to get the ‘snack’ listed between the first and second meal service (sandwich or cake), I had to walk up to the galley between CC and biz and pick it up myself. Between the first and second meal service, the crew pretty much vanished. I find the seats to be somewhere in between UA’s domestic coach and old international C.

Immigration at LAX didn’t seem quite as bad today as others have experienced, it took me maybe 15 minute to clear passport control. It is true, though, that some agents seemed to process green card holders slower than what I remember when I was traveling on a green card myself, so the citizen/permanent resident line didn’t move as fast as it could have. And when I looked back after passing through, it seemed the lines had grown quite a bit. Then the wait for the luggage started. When I arrived at the carousel, some bags were already circulating, and an announcement was made that priority baggage had been offloaded and placed next to the belt. I checked but mine wasn’t in that pile. In the end, it took another 30 minutes or so for my bag to show up, from what I could tell, the distribution of priority vs. regular bags was pretty random in terms of when they showed up. Another 10 minute line for clearing customs, the officers seemed to be processing passengers a bit slower than what I’m used to at East Coast airports.

Miles for the HKG-IST flight I took on Saturday have already posted, 125% RDM and 150% EQM credited to CO on an A fare.