After recovering from the pain that is known as a transatlantic flight, it was time to grab a transcontinental flight.
In the morning, I was watching Chicken Noodle Network, watching the snow in New York. I didn’t realise how this might impact until we arrived at T1 at O’Hare International.
After a short hop to the hotel, it was time to check in. As I’m a non-existent person on UA’s Mileage Plus scheme, it was join the back on a medium sized economy queue. After looking at the Mr Chicken. I managed to secure two E+ seats at $44 a pop. After thinking about it for all of 5 seconds, I slid my credit card in and watched the boarding passes spit out. Of course... even as a mere Star Alliance Silver, I wasn’t afforded the luxury of a Priority tag
Chicago T1 security is slowly improving. After having my passport UA scanned, and doing the shoe shuffle, I was asked if I had camera film, and they offered to check it manually. ^
After my friend caught up, we went through to concourse C with the light show in full progress as usual
Oooh... pretty lights!
We got to the gate with far too much time to spare, and looked at the departure time starting to increase. I then looked where the plane was coming from.
That’s right. Newark, land of snowstorms. Oh Biscuits!
After suffering some of the worst coffee I’m encountered, and taking pictures of planes, and insulting TED (well, it’s a pastime… we all have to go RAR at TED), a UA 757 finally pulled up at the gate.
It’s a 757 in old company colours…
After the godly 1K’s/Global Services pax boarded, by some bizarre means we were entered into Boarding area 1, and boarded quickly as the load factors were… 176 out of 182 were boarding. Pretty much a full house. It also seems they were one attendant down from normal, so it was a quick board and a prayer.
The captain came on, and told us about times, flight length and that Channel 9 was enabled. ^^ (To which I yay’d, giving rise to an amused look from the flight attendant)
After sitting around, we finally pushed back, and after a short taxi, we took off into the great blue stuff.
UA331 – ORD to SEA
Boeing 757-200
Seat 10D (was 30A)
Channel 9: - Enabled
And who says size doesn't matter in terms of seat pitch?
38” seat pitch.. A touch of sanity for my legs, but no spare windows
a bit of a shame as I had to sneak to the portals for pictures every now and again (then again, the captain had the seatbelt sign on for the first hour of the flight due about 10 minutes of turbulence
The film of the day was “Mr Magoos Magic Emporium.” Of course, even though it has the delightful Angelina Jolie, Channel 9 was enabled, allowing me a complete and utter geek.
Interior… defiantly 80’s/90’s although clean, the orange red and blueish seats (with the Verizon phone intact) do show their age. Defiantly could do with a little refit. The seat pitch was good, but the extra width of the Airbuses wins out here IMO. Unfortunately, due to timings, it seems I’m on another 757 on the way back…
Up front
... and down the back
A Beverage and snack box service commenced (I did not partake of the snack box – there’s only so much pain I’ll put myself through for writing trip reports). I took a coke, but there seemed to be a run on Cranapple during the flight.
Caffine 
Even though there were less crew than normal, they seemed to be working through the cabin pretty quickly. They pretty much rushed through clean up (I think they all wanted to get back to their sudoku puzzles personally… one and during the flight of the first class FA’s was happily enjoying them through take off… )
Even though the seatbelt sign was off, the flight was still pretty bumpy. The crew went about their business doing a coffee service (HEY... they’ve been to the Pam Ann School O’Flight Attendants. When its bumpy, its time for a Hot Steaming coffee service!)
Again the seat belt sign pinged, and the captain made the announce to buckle up.
This really continued for the remainder of the flight. This was ok, except I wanted to try and fake taking a few pictures for the blog.
We made good progress over Minneapolis, bumping along quiet happily. After an hour the crew went into hiding, to pop out when the safety light blipped on and off, and the flight continued its progress slowly, handing over to Salt Lake City (where upon the cabin crew took the remaining business meals to have their break). Pretty soon they reappeared, with mallet in hand to break apart the dry ice (and shut an overhead locker – with an awful lot of effort). Some of the crew were still doing their sodoku puzzles until about 1 hour out.
The crew seemed to respond quickly to pings and performed a second drinks service 1 hour before landing.
My friend who was stuck in the centre of the E+ seats kindly review the Quick Pick Buy on Board box. Quote “The Beef Jerky looked like plastic dog’s *** and the only edible thing in it was the Shortbread.”
(Sounds like I didn’t waste $5 there)
We passed a mountain range, continued the approach to SEA
Who says you can’t get pictures from an aisle seat then? Hmm?
Pretty soon we started the decent into SEA, and touched down about an hour late.
Luggage delivery was… slow. Very slow. Weather or not Priority tags were would had helped, I severely doubt it.
And off to explore Seattle...
To be continued in my Photoblog and next up on the Air trip report... "UA200 - How much caffine can I sink?"