#68 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
384 reviews
Here's the final leg of my re-routed trip to Columbus.
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.
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.
Lounge: None
Cabin & Seat: I have been on ERJ-175s more than any other plane this year. These are fairly reliable regional jets with good upgrade odds and solo seats. Even in economy, it's 2-2 so there are no middle seats. Overall, a solid regional jet.
Service: Service was friendly, but there wasn't exactly much they were working with. I was asked if I wanted refills of my coffee and any requests were addressed promptly.
Meal & Catering: The all-in-one snack bags are bad even for pandemic-era meals--they could have at least provisioned the usual United snack boxes. No PDBs or proper glassware on this flight either.
Bottom Line: If I had my choice I would not have taken this very roundabout routing, but I was glad to be able to make a flight and still get in at a good hour. Happy to have made it work and even happier to get an upgrade.
2 Comments
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!
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