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.

great report!

but this was crazy

but for doing this kind of travel isnt february a cheaper month?

Did you do anything besides fly, eat, and sleep so far? I know that this is a MR but considering the length of it, I was curious.

Secondly, what is the estimated total cost for airfare for this MR?

What do you think the estimated food and hotel cost wil be?

BTW, this is a SUPERB trip report!!! I look forward to the next installment!!!

Airfare costs are in the first post. Hotel costs I've given along the way. When on the SEA-MCO trips, I didn't really do anything except fly, eat, sleep and go to the pool. When in SEA, I stay at FlyingPenguin's place and do much the same things as at home: catch up with friends, play board games, eat out, etc. Last night, I went to a party which some friends held for someone I know from MEL who happens to also be in SEA at the moment.

It was odd to realise that I had over 30,000km more to go this trip, yet less sectors to fly than the last MCO trip.

The next flight was a freebie, which I've noticed can sometimes be upgraded, even though not on ual.com. A couple of 500-milers at checkin secured me a nice first class seat, and its value greatly exceeded my expectations.

UA965 SEA-LAX 752 3A 23/2/05 1210-1439 (actual 1217-1419)

This was one of my best short trips on UA ever. Our main FA was quite old, but one of the really good ones. She made everyone feel welcome, smiled a lot, did the lunch orders correctly, etc. Hot mixed nuts were served, then I had the turkey foccacia for lunch, followed later by hot towels. All top quality service. My seatmate was a lovely woman who was great fun to talk to, so we chatted for the whole flight. She imports products into the US from very close to home. How close? She gave me a sample and I was able to recognise the suburb as Richmond from the phone number. It's a few kms from where I live. We both ordered Amaretto, to each other's surprise. After all, hardly anyone orders the Amaretto. She even has a friend who goes to science fiction conventions.

At LAX, I had to go to the Tom Bradley terminal, for the first time in many years. My first surprise was that the air outside didn't immediately taste of smog. I walked along and saw the shuttle for other terminals, but it had a faulty wheelchair ramp and beeping like crazy while trying to let a guy in a wheelchair on, so I decided to walk.

Bradley isn't all bad. Walked past the luggage screening areas, which are where they should be, out in the open. Checkin was quick, then off to the LH lounge. At the TSA checkpoint, the sheeple in front of me had taken their shoes off, but I asked the TSA bloke if they do the obsessive shoe thing. He asked what I meant. "Making everyone take their shoes off", I said. "Only if there's metal in them", he replied. So I walked through without that hassle. TSA inconsistency strikes again. Why can't SEA, SFO, IAD, DCA, etc, still be like LAX?

The LH lounge is crap: Tiny, hardly any power points, no bathroom, no showers, few snacks. Looked like most other lounges were similarly bad though.

LH453 LAX-MUC 343 4A 1640-1300+1 (actual 1641-1309+1)

As everyone had checked in, they decided to board early, hence our takeoff a minute after scheduled departure.

LH is just so odd. The cabin design is a mixture of stunning brilliance and abject stupidity. The seats are very nifty, with electonic controls and great flexibility, but there is no space on the floor at all when in the flat sleeping position, and only effectively 4 overhead bins for 12 people! This was the first airline seat I've been able to sleep fully stretched out on, but the headrest sticks up more than I find comfortable.

The cabin design is very modern, yet there are no individual air vents, so even if the temperature is okay, it's easy to be uncomfortably hot, as there is almost no air flow at all. There's a storage area for shoes, but it's hard to fit 2 shoes into it. The headphones live in their own storage area and fit there far better than on ones head. The power points are supposed to be for laptops, yet you need an adapter for a standard Dell power cable.... Some silliness about how much power they draw. Amazing, since mine's a few years old and draws much less power than some.

There are about 15 channels of movies, but the only interesting ones I've already seen on UA. Last time I flew LH, they played crappy movies about 9 months after all the other airlines showed them. Now they are only 2-3 months out of date. I guess this is an improvement.

Dinner was quite good. The cold duck pancakes were better than they sounded. The beef main course was good, though the rice pilaf with cherries wasn't something I'd choose to accompany it. Hot towels were lovely, piping hot. If LH can use metal cutlery, why can't UA?

Flynet is a great concept and the portal to news isn't bad. However, it's in need of some more testing, since it constantly says "Your flight-nr.: 1FR4W; Airspeed 1852 kmh" and some pages don't work. Apart from news, the portal is lame. It doesn't include anything good, such as flyertalk.com, but I suggested in the survey that they should. I didn't try the internet connection, because I wanted to sleep instead of play online.

Oddly enough, LH FAs seem the slackest and least safety-conscious I've seen. People wander all over the cabin while the fasten seatbelts sign is on and they do absolutely nothing about it.

Brunch included one of those strange egg-coloured splodges, but it was piping hot and quite okay. Lots of rolls and croissants were available, thought the German pax seemed to avoid the croissants. Is this some anti-French thing?

After a zig-zag approach looking down at blinding white snow-covered ground, we landed at MUC. I made my way to the LH lounges for a refreshing showing and a nibble. There was some good German fare there, including sausages and apple strudel. I had the latter. Unfortunately, there is no free internet access here. Vodafone seem to have covered the airport with overpriced access points.

LH4916 MUC-BHX AR8 2A 24/2/05 1525-1640 (actual 1539-1627)

An RJ85? Hmmm. Looked like an old BAe146 to me. This was one of those flights where "gate" means the place you assemble to go downstairs to a bus, which is rather chilly when it's sub-zero outside and you are dressed to be comfortable in warm airports and overheated planes. Quite refreshing, though, in a way. It was less than half full in C, but almost full in Y. We received massive cold refresher towels, much like the ones fast food places have, but about 15 times larger.

Food service also resembled a fast food restaurant in some respects: Cold cuts of beef with white gunk on it, cold spaghetti with carrot bits and tiny orange eyeball things, with, for dessert, a white chalky-looking blob with brown dust squares on top and a snot-coloured sauce surrounding it.

On arrival, I caught the exorbitant train (7.20GBP for a distance which would cost maybe 1/4 that at home) to Hinckley. My line was the only one running late, and by about an hour, but this mattered little, since the trains are about an hour apart.

My mind was kind of hazy for the train trip from Birmingham New St to Hinckley. On arrival, the sea of rapidly moving business types with briefcases disappeared into the night. Three people with luggage remained in the station carpark, all looking distinctly not like locals. We were all destined for the same place, so we caught a cab and were off to Redemption '05.

Part 1, to SFO.

This section written in part with the Boomtown Rats' "I Don't Like Mondays" pounding through my headphones as the 747 thrashes around in turbulence over Baffin Island. (... west of Greenland.)

LH's schedules suck in so many inexplicable ways. For example, their FRA-SFO is so early that few of their own European flights are early enough to meet it! As it was thus impossible to fly out of BHX, I'd grabbed a lift down to LHR and stayed the night at the Crowne Plaza. I tried up to US$55 on priceline.com without success, but with an counter-offer to rebid at $64, I knew something 4* was available. I tried �30 (US$57) on priceline.co.uk in priceline-money, which comes to �39.22GBP as a real total.

The Crowne Plaza was a very nice place, but in a very irritating location, away from all the free buses on Bath Rd, where almost all the other LHR hotels are situated. For the first time ever, I really had no alternative than to take the stupid Hotel Hoppa, probably the most expensive public transport on the planet. Makes the Crowne Plaza effectively �42.22.

LH checkin was very unimpressive. My seat assignments had changed for no obvious reason and they don't bother to use ticket jackets even for C pax. The agent stuck my baggage claim sticker to my passport! When I later asked at the lounge about the seating change, the agent was nice enough to check my PNR and even showed it to me. There was absolutely no note to say why my seat allocations from a month ago had been blown away. I had previously had 6A LHR-FRA and 5A FRA-SFO and ended up with 5A and 9A respectively. The former I didn't care about, but I generally prefer not to have exit row seats. However, the advantage of exit rows is that they are usually cooler, which is why I'd accepted that seat.

LH4743 LHR-FRA 321 5A 28/2/05 0635-0905 (actual 0646-0749)

I asked Mr 6A whether there was anything special or odd about his seat assignment and ended up chatting to him for a while. He was a friendly Pommie bloke. He'd just checked in at a machine and it had shown him 6A as available. He did say that was a bit odd, so the mystery of LH's random seat re-allocations continues with no answers.

Again, there was the massive cold refresher towel. Brekky wasn't too bad. A platter of cheeses, cold meat, fruits & vegetables, jam. The rolls were warm, but unfortunately they were all brown.

Arrived into FRA and did the parking and bus thing, instead of using a gate in the proper way. Unlike MUC, which was all very civilised, FRA was a mess, with the silliest security screening I've seen to just get from one gate to another. Yes, the silliest. Worse that the USA! The Y line was enormous. The C/F line was quite a bit better, but still bad. The screening process was not only slow, but poorly organised. No walk-through detectors, but manual wanding and patting down of all pax. Once you finish that, they sit you down, get you to take your shoes off, and put them through the X-ray machine. This, of course, takes about twice as long as if you just had to take your shoes off and put them through the machine with the rest of your items. There was more idiocy to come for me. I was carrying a hard disk in one of my bags. This same item went through SEA, LAX and LHR without any problems at all, but these cretins put it through the X-ray machine a second time and then sent it off for bomb testing. The bomb test guy pronounced "It is fine." "I know!" I replied, in an appropriate tone.

Not only was the FRA security experience a mess, but the LH lounge was small and not nearly as nice as the MUC one, nor were its bathrooms nearly as big or well-appointed. I snacked on some chips and had a drink and a shower.

LH454 FRA-SFO 744 9A 1010-1230 (actual 1057-1238)

The pilot kept us informed, saying that the delay in departure was caused by a security issue and someone's bags having to be removed from the hold.

This is an old config, definitely not modern like the LAX-MUC flight. The seats were even worse, with absolutely no storage space at all for anything. This is the sort of thing that makes me appreciate UA. The little nook in the UA armrests is big enough to hold headphones or a computer mouse or all manner of little things and it's really a pain having nowhere whatsoever like it. Likewise, the lack of air vents and the cold packet of cashews are pathetic compared to UA. Having 110v power is great, but, just as with the A340, it required a plug adapter to "convert" 110v/60Hz US shaped to 110v/60Hz with 2 round pins. What sort of stupidity is that?

On the plus side is the food. A cold beef starter, salad and bread was followed by, as one option, pumpkin seed crusted medalions of lamb accompanied by bean ratatouille and polenta. Heaven compared to the pleasant, but utterly boring, filet mignon that UA provides me so often. The black and white chocolate mousse with fruit coulis was rather good too, matched nicely by my choice of a Bailey's on the rocks. Well, "choice" is perhaps a bit strong, given that Bailey's is the only liqueur available apart from port. Why can't LH offer some variety, at least Galliano, Cointreau, Amaretto, etc, like every other decent airline?

This flight included a nice surprise: I missed Bourne Supremacy when it was on UA, so LH's several-months-late programming gave me a chance to catch it.

There was a mid-flight snack, cake and fresh fruit, followed towards landing time by the meal described as lunch by FAs or a snack by the menu. I had the hot option (ravioli) and enjoyed it.

Just as with my LAX-MUC flight, the FAs were so much less safety-conscious than I am used to. Having had pax wandering all over the place, and even queueing for the toilets while the seatbelt sign was lit. They happily allowed pax to have bags, etc, all over the floor for takeoff and landing, even in the bulkhead row. The only place they cared about was, of course, the exit area where I was.

Got through SFO customs quickly and went to the Int'l RCC, where I am now. It's very quiet here. About 3pm, I think I may have been the only (non-staff) person in the whole place!

Part 2, the home stretch.

At about 8:45pm, I left the RCC and went around to the SQ lounge for a bite to eat (the usual chicken wings and sandwiches and a packet of chips) and a shower. Lovely, friendly little place. Always like the way the SQ lounge people are happy to see you and smile when you tell them you like their lounge, unlike the NZ people in SYD who sneer at you and sometimes say things like "We won't call your flight" and "Don't you know where the UA lounge is?"

UA863 SFO-SYD 744 17A 28/2/05 2215-0745+2 (actual 2237-0722+2)

This was one of my best long trips on UA. Hot towels were hot. Filet mignon was hot and in a rather good Hollandaise sauce, accompanied by good veggies. Dessert was a cheesecake of some sort that was excellent. I, Robot was quite a decent flick. Being very tired, fell asleep right after dinner and movie, about 1am SFO time. Apart from being woken for a few mins by Mr 17B's snoring and another few mins by some super-bouncy turbulence, I slept solidly until the FA's call of "breakfast?" 9.5 hours later.

Breakfast wasn't bad either! Scrambled egg, hot and moist, with turkey sausages. After landing, I went to the NZ lounge as usual.

UA839 SYD-MEL 744 17A 2/3/05 0940-1115 (actual 0957-1100)

About 50 seconds after our wheels left the ground, the captain announced it was fine to use electronic equipment. Hot nuts and drinks were served. We were told there would be video entertainment and headphones were given out. The morons (LAX crew) then proceeded to show us a series of arrival videos, including AKL, SYD, LAX & SFO. Yes ... AKL! ... not even served by UA any more. It's video, Jim, but not as we know it.

Statistics:

Actual miles: 44009 (42377 paid + 1632 free)
Actual sectors: 23 (21 paid + 2 free)

UA miles: 94228 (43738 + 42238 [1P] + 7252 [C class 25%] + 1000 [online booking])
EQM: 57488 (43738 + 13750 [C class 50%])
EQS: 24 (21 paid + 3 [C class 50%])

Great, detailed report. Thanks!

More LH strangeness. On my 23/2 LAX-MUC flight, I sent a couple of e-postcards via the LH portal. They do, I'll admit, warn you that the emails won't be sent immediately, but I assumed they meant a delay of seconds or minutes, or maybe that they'd be batched up at the end of the flight at worst.

How wrong I was. One of those e-postcards finally arrived in a friend's email yesterday, 13 days later! For a plane which has a direct internet connection to the ground, that is certainly pathetic.