I remember being in an international business flight and asking for a pillow like... 6-8 months ago and getting the lamest excuse in recorded history.

I would have accepted almost any excuse, blaming it on the caterers, calling smisek a pig, whatever... but this one was so bad that instead of making me angry, it actually made me laugh.

"Well, due to the avian flu and the swine flu we here decided to protect our passengers and stop issuing these 'petri dishes', if you'd like i can give you a rolled up blanket"

It happened to me on my last two flights a few weeks ago. The first I chalked up to boarding late (and I don't recall if other pax had PDBs). The second I chalked up to a terrible flight crew. But now I'm worried that it's some bigger conspiracy.
Big :td::td: if so.

What's funny is that US charges $1 for the mixers in Y. The very same mixers are twice as much in CO F. :eek:

I've been fed that line too. Ridiculous.

At least you're not missing much if you skip those two options. Still, kinda cheap of CO to charge for drinks in F.

Tee hee. That was a good one.

Agreed. It would be preferrable if the steerage flyers could be boarded a few minutes after F, with the GA closing the jetway door in between. It would help reduce gate lice and would give the cabin time to get settled before the self loading cargo comes barging through making the walk of shame.

Yes but they need to discount the price in US Y. It's US for pete's sake. CO F is so many thousands of times better that the additional charge is justified.

Does CO board its 757s through the front door? UA boards between first and coach, which does a nice job of separating the classes. (Of course, it does mean that up front passengers aren't all first off, except when the occasional FA physically blocks the economy crowd, but that seems like a fair tradeoff to me.)

Depends on the gate. If it can be accommodated, boarding through 2L is typical.

I actually go the other way on that. When extended, the UA F headrests are perfectly comfortable, but when lowered they are far too low, plus they stick out from the seat quite a bit and thus very uncomfortably dig into my back (I'm 6'2"). Combined with the silly rule that the headrests must be lowered for taxi, takeoff and landing (no such rule on CO), this makes for fairly long annoying periods where I find myself wishing I was on CO.

If you have them at their max (10" or so above the seat) on takeoff/landing, the FAs will lower them or call you out. Keep them at 3"-4" and you'll be fine.

I'm happy to take a few minutes of slight uncomfortableness for a full flight of a more enjoyable head experience :)

Oddly enough, I'm only 5'6" and actually raise the headrest completely above my head when I sleep so that I may lie back further (against the seat below the headrest). The best solution would be to make the headrest completely repositionable and removable -- like, for example, a pillow!

My jacket was hung and my pre-departure drink served with a smile this afternoon - nothing different there.

I hate the little cuts that are being made here and there, and I agree with the OP that the lack of a forward tilt adjustment on the headrest can be uncomfortable - but I don't miss the lice-infested, planet-o-germ, bed-bug crawlfest shared pillows.

Basic inflatable pillows are available from many vendors for under $10, or you can select a more luxurious option.

Now that I've had some more flight experience with CO, my impression of the First Class experience has substantially improved. I'm 2 for 4 on upgrades in the past week, which isn't bad considering my lowly Gold status right now. On both FC flights, I did have my jacket hung and was given pre-flight drinks. In fact, the service and food were both better than any comparable UA flights in quite some time, and will hopefully survive the merger.

The AV systems and available power on most of my flights, in both FC and coach, were much better than the typical UA domestic product. While I was happy to see the UA 737s disappear, the CO ones seem quite comfortable, especially with the large FC cabin for upgrading. Even my four hours in steerage on a 767 felt okay, although it can really use the extra few inches when E+ arrives.

By the way, I hope no one feels offended by negative comments I've made about certain elements. As a newcomer here, I'm more attuned to differences from UA than the regulars might be, and am just trying to point out those differences in the hope that your experience will help me better adapt to changes or that we might collectively lobby for the new airline to keep the best features of its predecessors. I'd still like to have pillows, tilting headrests, and maybe table cloths, but on the whole do feel that my onboard experience is moving up a notch.