If you do not know i am a bit scared of flights in general, especially with old aircraft or low-cost carriers. Also on this flight i am travelling with my brother and my sister who are unaccompanied minorsand i will be judging the airline heavily on this as their performance last time was very bad. With this said let's start…
CDG Airport is quite easy to access (2 Highways, 1 Motorway, 1 TGV Station, 2 RER Stations and many buses going to the surrounding areas), here i take the car to Carpark Green, in Terminal 1, a lot os space is always available there.
Arriving at Terminal 1 is an easy thing, now for the check-in. I go into the line, which dosen't take very long at my surprise and my bag is checked in quickly. I stare while the process is done at an ad from the Qatari national airline and it's majestic A380s which i still didnt have a chance to go on yet.
My brother and my sister have to pass through the United Ticketing servie to get all the forms required for the UM measures. Once those forms are done they check-in their bags as well. Their line, however is pretty dense…
While waiting for them i tour the toilets, which are very large
Also, CDG offers free WiFi, an occasion for me to check my flight status.
The Screen confirms my flight is On Time
The gates are upstairs behind an escalator
After passing border control, we have to walk through a long hallway to join our gates
United is very present at this time of the day, with flights leaving to Chicago, Washington, Newark and San Francisco nearly simultaneously
From the gate i can do some spotting… A388 Thai
777 Qatar
And our bird for today, a 777-200ER that already seems pretty old…
At the back, a private 747, anyone knows who this belongs to ?
The aircraft is organized into a 3-3-3 arrangement, which leaves pretty big aisles
The IFE is of reasonable length/height/width
The magazines and cards
This could come in handy…
The earphones, all 3/3 are on this time !
The pitch isn't good at all, 15° at most
The TV controller, if you intend on playing games this might come into handy as well
A screen displaying flight information is attached to every wall on all 3 walls.
Cussions and blankets, useless as i never sleep on flights, even 17 hour long ones
Taking a peek outside…
The press is distributed in the plane, i take french sports magazine l'Equipe
The United Security video is being passed while taxiing
It's a cloudy day in Paris, 777 Air Austral, A388 Singapore and 777 EVA Air in Hello Kitty livery
Takeoff, my heart rate climbs every second…
Cruising altitude is initially 32000 feet but we will eventually climb to 35 and 36 000 feet.
Lunch is served soon after passing over Ireland, chicken or pasta. My sister took the pasta
I took the chicken
A light snack is proposed soon after, with an ice cream
The view over the Atlantic
Tha cabin has gone darker
Anyways, somehow after watching several movies, TV shows and the flight map i see us pass the halfway mark of our flight
Another snack is proposed over Canada, two crackers and a bottle of water.
It is followed half an hour later by a pretzel roll and a drink (the drink after the snack, the opposite way of how it was on EWR-CDG)
Finally we are approaching Newark !
The sky is very cloudy and there is a lot of turbulence. My heart rate sinks, drops and rises back up again by each movement of the aircraft. And i am not reassured by a bit of flap i guess ? that dangles on it's own on the wing as well as the roof shaking…
Newark's famous approach by the Manhattan Skyline
Touchdown
Our gate neighbor is a small Porter Airlines aircraft (DHC-8-Q400) leaving for Toronto City
Premature message ? We arrived just on time (12AM), but the bus that was pushing us to gate miscalculated the distance and pushed us too much forward… As a result the captain needs to reignite everything and asks the passengers to sit down. What came out as an on-time arrival becomes a 25 minute delay…nice.
This time the crew atually pays attention ot the UMs and ask them to stay till all passengers on board have been put off the plane. Now let's go to Customs…
I manage to take pictures of the area even though it is not allowed, but the call of the large window was too strong, as spotting as just great, unfortunately an officer saw me nad made me delete…only the photo of the Immigration Services themselves phew, i can keep this picture then
All bagages were accounted for. Thank you for reading this Report and i hope you enjoyed it, see you soon !
See more
Verdict
United
5.8/10
Cabin3.5
Cabin crew7.0
Entertainment/wifi8.0
Meal/catering4.5
Paris - CDG
8.9/10
Efficiency7.0
Access9.5
Services10.0
Cleanliness9.0
Newark - EWR
9.6/10
Efficiency10.0
Access9.5
Services9.5
Cleanliness9.5
Conclusion
0 LIKESLIKE TO THANK THE AUTHORTHANKS ! FLIGHT-REPORT LIKED
I completely understand you with your fear. I was also afraid of flying before I got interested in aviation. My interest for aviation helped me learn more about airplanes and I eventually overcame the fear.
The cabin doesn't look bad and the IFE seems to be decent. The tray the meal comes in looks pretty small.
“The sky is very cloudy and there is a lot of turbulence. My heart rate sinks, drops and rises back up again by each movement of the aircraft. And i am not reassured by a bit of flap i guess ? that dangles on it's own on the wing as well as the roof shaking...” - I'm not sure if it helps but one thing that you can do is to mentally prepare yourself that the plane is supposed to shake and that the movements are supposed to happen. I'm not sure but it could help.
I will be having my first UA TATL flight (MUC-ORD) in a few months, and I'm anxious to know what it will be like. Product looks OK on UA, but nothing too spectacular, I guess.
Thanks for sharing. I'm surprised to read that an aviation fan could fear flying but you can't really chose what you're afraid of. For me, some turbulence is making a flight a bit more entertaining, unless I'm eating ;) Planes are built to withstand even severe conditions and also older ones are very safe if they are well maintained. UA is no spectacular carrier but I've made no negative experiences with them either.
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4 Comments
I completely understand you with your fear. I was also afraid of flying before I got interested in aviation. My interest for aviation helped me learn more about airplanes and I eventually overcame the fear.
The cabin doesn't look bad and the IFE seems to be decent. The tray the meal comes in looks pretty small.
“The sky is very cloudy and there is a lot of turbulence. My heart rate sinks, drops and rises back up again by each movement of the aircraft. And i am not reassured by a bit of flap i guess ? that dangles on it's own on the wing as well as the roof shaking...” - I'm not sure if it helps but one thing that you can do is to mentally prepare yourself that the plane is supposed to shake and that the movements are supposed to happen. I'm not sure but it could help.
Have a good one, see you!
I will be having my first UA TATL flight (MUC-ORD) in a few months, and I'm anxious to know what it will be like.
Product looks OK on UA, but nothing too spectacular, I guess.
I hope you have safe travels!
Regards
Jish
It belongs to Qatar Amiri Flight (registration A7-HJA).
Thank you for this report.
I'm surprised to read that an aviation fan could fear flying but you can't really chose what you're afraid of. For me, some turbulence is making a flight a bit more entertaining, unless I'm eating ;)
Planes are built to withstand even severe conditions and also older ones are very safe if they are well maintained.
UA is no spectacular carrier but I've made no negative experiences with them either.
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