In the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, I wrote my first compliment letter to UA today, regarding a flight I took yesterday. My main complaints about UA arise from the lack of consistency - I tend to get crews that are either friendly enough but kind of play by their own rules or deliver by-the-book service devoid of any warmth. Yesterday's flight embodied the best of both worlds. In my mind, their was no base the crew didn't touch. A sampling:
I'm not one to gush about a particular flight or crew, but sometimes you have one of those flights where the crew is so on the ball you almost want to applaud. February 8th's UA 995 frrom Dulles to Nassau, Bahamas, was one of those flights.
I just barely made the flight since my inbound RJ was late and as usual the G terminal was a zoo. I arrived to find Captain Dale Hansen in the aisle, addressing the passengers over the L1 PA. Upon seeing me he gave me a bit of a joshing over my punctuality, referring to me as "the Late Mr. X", much to the amusement of my fellow passengers. After wrapping up his spiel he returned to the flight deck and despite being virtually at departure time, the purser, Rochelle, offered to get me a pre-departure beverage.
After takeoff, Rochelle kept up the jovial banter with the mostly holiday-making crowd and elected to replace the "boring" short video programming with a feature movie out of the plane's inventory, to be voted on by the passengers. "Walk the Line" came out on top and was started immediately in order to get it finished within the two-hour flight time. Rochelle has a great sense of humour and the all-too-rare ability to be light-hearted without sounding corny.
Rochelle then brought out two ramekins of warm nuts for each passenger in F, along with their drinks. She advised us of our meal choices and told us we could eat at our leisure. All three passengers elected to eat right away and Rochelle obliged, delivering hot towels first and then the food within 10 minutes.
Rochelle kept drinks refreshed without prompting throughout the flight and cleared meal trays as soon as passengers threw in the towel (or napkin, in this case) on eating. A round of ice water in glassware soon followed, "just in case". Coffee and caramel apple crumble followed. Apparently this dessert is usually served cold, but Rochelle thinks it's tastier served warm, so she took the liberty of popping each slice in the oven for a bit before serving.
I had already seen the movie so I started working on a spreadsheet, only to be politely interrupted by Rochelle, who delivered a personal note from Captain Hansen, written on the back of his business card, expressing his thanks for my loyalty (I'm 1K). He also sent back a full color meteorlogical map of the flight route, with some flight info hand-written in the margins.
After cleaning up the galley, Rochelle stopped by my seat to refresh my coffee and ended up chatting with me for a good twenty minutes, at first discussing the Bahamas, then moving on to the airline industry and some other topics. Rochelle is a 17-year UA veteran, and with a small child at home now prefers to do this 8-hour trip a few times a week even though she can hold "better" flying. Sadly, she mentioned in passing - without a hint of bitterness, I might add - that her monthly pension upon her forcasted retirement in 2016 will amount to a little over $200 a month from the PBGC.
All in all, a near perfect flight IMHO... and not just in F, either - the Y cabin appeared to be getting doting service from the ladies as well.
Keep your eyes open for either of these two great assets to UA - Rochelle currently just works the NAS route but Capt. Hansen can apparently be found anywhere a UA Airbus might be.