new years eve trip to columbus
Here's the final leg of my re-routed trip to Columbus.
Flight routing
- 1UA3893 - Economy - Roanoke → Washington - CRJ-200
- 2
- 3UA3704 - Domestic First - Newark → Columbus - Embraer E-175
- 4WN3457 - Economy - Columbus → Washington - Boeing 737-700
newark international airport terminal c
I was originally hoping to hop over to Terminal B for a very quick visit to one of the various Star Alliances lounges, but realized when I was deplaning from my previous flight that none of those lounges were going to be open before boarding my next flight: the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge in A was temporarily closed; the Lufthansa Business/Senator Lounge in B did not open until 2:30pm; and the SAS Business Lounge in B did not open until 2:00pm. Oh well. Off to my gate at C109.
ua3704
My flight to Columbus was on N752YX, a 4-years old ERJ-175LR.
Pre-boarding began at 12:33pm.
The ERJ-175s have 4 rows of first class in a 1-2 configuration (i.e. there are very good upgrade odds on this 76-seat plane).
Despite switching over to this flight late the previous evening, I got an email at around 1 in the morning that I had been upgraded and put in 3A. The solo seat in the third row. Not many elites on this flight: there ended up being 3 empty seats in F at takeoff; that's even after a deadheading pilot moved up.
Here's a look at the 2-2 economy cabin behind me.
There's nothing special about these ERJ-175 first class seats. Plenty of legroom, but little else. The table unfolds from the right armrest and a power outlet can be found in the lower left. Two overhead air nozzles and lights are available even for the solo seats.
The captain announced a flight time of 1 hour 25 minutes. We pushed back at 2:03pm, 3 minutes behind schedule and after a decently long taxi, took off at 2:16pm.
Service began quickly after takeoff (about 6 minutes), with snack bags at first and then drink orders.
I just wanted a cup of coffee, but there were a few up front that partook in wine and beer.
The lavatory is small and standard for these regional jets. There's soup and hand sanitizer proivded.
We began our descent around 3:14pm and landed at 3:40pm. Even though we arrived at gate B32 6 minutes later, it would be another 14 minutes before we actually connected to the jet bridge because there was no ramp crew initially.
Wow, that almost never happens. Nice considering all the cancellation chaos. Though I guess empty seats in Domestic F are more common during the Holidays with less Elites flying. There were a few empty seats on my SAN-EWR flight last week.
Nothing says first class like a tiny bottle of water and a biscoff in a plastic pouch!
Thanks for sharing!
-I think that's definitely the reason, though it's happened to me a few times during the pandemic as business travel certainly has not recovered. A counterpoint though is that there are definitely way more new elites than before as everyone has been able to get elite status from the reduced requirements (or so it feels). I had a friend qualify for UA Silver from just a few weekend flights for weddings.
-Indeed. I wonder if most of the return of service such as PDBs and glassware only applies to mainline flights and not United Express.
Thanks for reading all of these reports Kevin!