UA950
IAD-BRU
Departure: 6:39pm (Scheduled 5:50pm)
Arrival: 8:21am (Scheduled 7:15am, +6 hours)
Flight time 7:02 (7:42 including taxi)
Seat: 1L

Group one was surprisingly light for a sold out 777-300ER, and I had the pleasure of turning left to my seat after boarding through 2L.

Standard Polaris setup

Another view of all my goodies.

Big bottle of water which I love, helpful to have on arrival.

Shortly after sitting down the FA offered a PDB of sparkling wine, not the Chao age they serve on board due to tax reasons.

Tonight’s menu. We ended up having a 45 min ground delay to offload bags so I was chatting to the FAs about the rumor that garlic bread was back. They looked and were happy to confirm and even showed me the bag they were catered in. They seemed to be knots which looked good.

We passed a Lufthansa 747 headed to Frankfurt while taxiing, yet somehow it got to take off before us.

In his welcome announcement the Captain warned there would be some turbulence after take off and in light of the recent LH injuries/diversion (he just said “events”) he would be keep the seatbelt sign on for a little longer. As promised, it was bumpy with a 5 minute stretch of moderate turbulence then some standard choppy air. About an hour after take-off, and only 10 min after crew were allowed to standup, the service started with a nice towel.

Started watching the movie Amsterdam as nuts and a first drink was served. The nuts were warn but weirdly soggy, I wonder if they were stuck in the oven for longer than usual due ot the turbulence.

Then the meal was served. United has definitely stepped up their salad game. The food was fine but nothing remarkable. Note for whatever reason garlic rolls didn’t end up being served. No idea why, but wanted to get to sleep ASAP so didn’t say anything. The crew were great during meal service and proactively offered refills or to switch drinks when a new course (nuts, tray, dessert — would it be too much to ask for a separate appetizer UA!!!) came.


Being sensitive to lactose, I passed on the Sundae, much to the shock of the FA. Instead I had a port with the egg custard, which was really good!


Then I went to brush my teeth, change into my self-brought pajamas, and asked for a mattress pad to make my bed.

I made a bed nowhere near as good as the one ANA flight attendants me when I flew them in F!

Nice thing about the bulkhead is the wider foot well.

I got a good 2.5 hours of sleep and an hour of on-and-off napping. Soon it was time to the meal service where the menu’s Belgian waffle wasn’t loaded but instead a ham and cheese sandwich. I went with the egg dish even though I knew I wouldn’t like it.

There was a delicious fruit salad that came with it.

Spent the rest of the flight listening to a podcast and enjoying the gorgeous views.



Since we arrived in Brussels late there was a mad dash of connecting passengers, so I let most go before leaving the plane. Fortunately, immigration for non-EU passport holders had no line. The EU line seemed long but was fast moving but don’t know for sure.

All in, another standard Polaris flight. Service better than usual, and breakfast worse due to not loading what I wanted. UA’s one tray meal service was very annoying on IAH-NRT when I flew that, but on a red eye it was fine. The crew had my tray cleared 45 min after they stood up post-turbulence so all in a great speed for a red eye, just a shame it started an 45min later than otherwise for reasons outside everyone’s control.

Writing this on the DB IC from Liege to Cologne and hopefully will have the Liege portion posted soon!