Part 2, getting back to SEA

For dinner, I took a walk to the nearby TGIF for an almost free meal (appetizer award on my Goldpoints card) and then had an early night, since I would be having a hellishly early morning.

Got up at about 5:30am (that's 2:30am Pacific time -- before I usually go to bed!), had a potato and leek soup (from packet) for breakfast and went down to see if I could grab some pastries to take away for lunch. The first server I spoke to suggested $2 each, but another, who seemed more senior, said she sells them for $1 each. I chose 2 doughnuts and 2 cinnamon rolls and went to check out.

UA1558 MCO-IAD 320 4A 15/2/05 0735-0943 (actual 0746-0928)

It was unusual seeing so many people I recognised: At the door of the plane was Captain Scott Hoffman, the same pilot I flew IAD-MCO with, and the flight attendants, who I'd met on the shuttle from the Marriott. It was also unusual, and very good, that the whole of row 1 was empty and all but my sear in row 4 likewise. The Captain, looking a little tired compared to yesterday, told us all that he'd taken his mother-in-law out to dinner last night and that his voice was a bit hoarse, though he didn't know how that could be, as he'd hardly managed to speak. He also told us fog was bad in IAD, such that category 3 planes such as us could land, but RJs were going elsewhere.

Once I had a drink, I lay down to go to sleep. At some point, one of the FAs brought me a pillow and a blanket.

UA5402 IAD-JFK CRJ 2A 1050-1157 (actual 1053-1138)

Trish, our FA, was very good. Drinks were served, along with a selection of the same crappy pretzel mixes that UA has, plus Balance Gold Caramel Nut Blast bars. I tried the bar, which looked quite appealing, but tastes rather like a Mars bar with sawdust inside.

My return was booked as UA5409, which has a 1440 departure, but I don't trust RJs, especially Air Wisky ones, to run on time. Therefore, I requested a seat on the earlier plane at the gate, which was no problem. After all, I wouldn't want to miss my IAD-SEA flight, would I? Well, the answer to that was later to become less clear.

UA5407 JFK-IAD CRJ 12A 1235-1350 (actual 1255-1344)

Same crew as UA5402. Trish's version of the safety commentary was identical this flight to last, which adds to the standard one somewhat. For one thing, the steps for fitting the oxygen mask included "stop screaming". Then came "if you are travelling with a child, or someone who is acting like a child, or someone who just needs assistance, ..." Same drinks and snack choices. I declined the sawdust bar this time. Being down the back, I was one of the last to leave. Trish's parting remark to me was "It was a pleasure giving you miles."

I had a couple of hours before boarding, but nothing in particular to do, so headed to the gate, C14. As there were already quite a few people there, I sat in front of the much emptier C12, which had no upcoming flights marked, and ate lunch. Some time later, more people started sitting nearby. Overflow from C14, maybe? A Dutch girl sat nearby and asked me to mind her stuff. She returned with a Starbucks coffee container. Clearly she's not going to Seattle, I thought. ...No, Amsterdam. (She was indeed in the right place, as a while later, UA finally marked the gate as being for UA946.) She had been in the US visiting rellies and is studying fashion. What struck her about the USA in that respect, I enquired, to which she responded quickly that Americans don't care much about fashion. ... "and they're fat".

Poor girl is not very FT material. "What are those people doing?" she asked, seeing pax wandering up to the desk. "Probably asking about upgrades", said I. "How do you do that?" OMG! She's not a member of any frequent flyer programme at all. I'm glad she didn't ask the purpose of my trip, since it might have been too hard to explain!

UA917 IAD-SEA 762 9A 1705-1949 (actual 1859-2104)

This is another type of flight that's memorable, but for very different reasons to p.s. The yellowed plastics and worn fabrics just shrieked "I'm ancient", but that's just the start. You see, I have good news and some bad news.

The good news is that I was upgraded. The bad news is that these must be the most uncomfortable C seats in the fleet, if not the world. The good news is that pre-departure OJ and water was served. The bad news is that it was somewhat sporadic, as the FA had to wait quite a lot while various passengers had much trouble getting their massive bags into the overhead bins.

The good news is that we pushed back a couple of mins after 5pm. The bad news is that that was only our first pushback of the flight. After initially being told that a maintenance issue with the radar altimeter could be resolved by paperwork alone, we made the slow return to the gate, arriving back at C14 at 6pm. My UAX flights in whole were quicker than that!

The good news is that one of the FAs took meal orders while we were still at the gate. The bad news is that he did it in the old bee-buzzing-from-seat-to-seat manner. By the time he got to me, the 1P all alone with 9B empty, ribs was only item left. The good news is that the guy behind me, who I'd been chatting to a little earlier, heard this and said that he didn't care if he had chicken or ribs, so a swap was enacted.

The good news is that they determined that the plane was okay to fly. The bad news is that it finally took off 6 mins shy of 2 hours late.

The good news is that at least I had the only empty seat in the whole of C next to me for the flight. The bad news is that 9E had a broken tray table, so the occupant of that seat was moved to 9B.

The good news is that the salad looked really good, including cherry tomatoes and cheese. The bad news is that the lettuce was limp and the whole salad was at warmish room temperature. The good news is that the dessert was apple pie. The bad news is that no cream or ice cream with it. The good news is that they said they'd show another movie after the gridiron thing. The bad news is that it was just "Shall We Dance?", the movie that's been showing eastbound for the last 2 weeks, so most people would have seen it already!

The really bad news, with not even a hint of anything good about it, was that the cabin was hot. It was warm when we boarded, but became hotter at meal time and continued to get worse. I pointed this out to an FA when it was 28 degrees (82 Fahrenheit) according to my digital thermometer. He agreed about the warmth and asked to borrow it to check the other side of the cabin. He came back a few mins later, saying "it's even hotter over there!", the reading being at 29.1! The FAs reported it to the cockpit, but never reported back any response. I asked the flight crew after landing what was wrong with the airconditioning. One said "nothing is wrong"; one grunted "we reported it". At least one of those statements is a lie, and it was obvious neither gave a **** about uncomfortable passengers sweltering for 5 hours on a flight which left 2 hours late.

The p.s. flight was far and away the best transcon US flight I've ever had, while this one was easily my worst ever.