Review of United flight Chicago → Portland in Economy

Welcome to another flight review of ORD-PDX, via United! The time had come to visit my brother in law and his family (husband's brother), and I was glad to head back to see them. We make this trip at least once a year, often twice or more. The flight is never too difficult - I like flying and find 4 hours manageable. 

We started our journey in Terminal 2 of ORD, which is usually where the smaller regional jets hang out. It is a bad terminal! It really sucks. ORD has renovated each terminal, I believe, and I think it just hasn't gotten around to this one yet. It's the "terminal god forgot" to me. The last time I was here was on the way to BHM - you can find that flight report on this site, complete with "gory" pics of the torn seats! This gate had more intact seat cushions, but it was designed terribly. There were not enough seats for people, at all, and there were large empty spaces where more seats could've gone. You might think that at least these few seats had some outlets here and there. Of course not! It is still 1996…never mind, it is not.

I'd suggest not visiting the sit-down restaurants here. We had time to kill because of a delay, and there is little to do in this sad terminal, so we started at one restaurant and wound up at another. This isn't as weird as it sounds, I promise! My husband wasn't hungry yet but wanted a drink, as I did, so we started at the Blackhawks (hockey team) themed restaurant, Stanley's. (This is named after the Stanley Cup trophy.) Aside from some signed jerseys and other accoutrements, there is little here to excite you. It is the platonic ideal of bad airport food for high prices. I am OK with both at an airport, really, but this stretched my tolerance quite thin. I ordered a chopped salad with chicken for $18 and got a sad mound of not chopped iceberg (icky) lettuce with greasy chicken, large whole cherry tomatoes, crappy shredded cheese, and overcooked/burnt bacon, with side dressing that was cafeteria-standard. I didn't eat much of it, so when we went to the Chili's later on, my husband got his dinner of gummy chips (how do you mess those up?) and we split some southwest egg rolls, which were very hot on the outside but lukewarm on the inside…just great work all around. Chili's is known for margaritas, and despite how gross the restaurant can be in a regular-world context, the margaritas are always tasty. Here, they offered a total of 3 to choose from. TLDR, restaurants in T2 are bad enough to make you angry.

I went off to find the table full of chargers in the gate, while my husband went to a normal seat. He missed a show! I talked to a couple heading back from a Caribbean vacation, both masked. An overly fake tanned blonde woman was nearby and about to return to the table. The couple told me, before she headed over, that she seemed drunk and had been berating them for wearing masks - what a moron. She also kept insulting Portland, the city everyone was headed to - not a nice thing to do. The couple and I then talked about Chicago and Portland, and it was lots of fun. By this point, the jerk woman came back, asking us what we were talking about, clearly looking for some sort of fight. This was apparent because of her invasive question and snarling look. We said we were talking about Portland and Chicago, though in no way did we even owe her an explanation! Then some time went by…and at one point she looked at the couple and said "Disgusting!" The woman from the couple softly asked, "what is?" The cowardly woman didn't answer at that point. By then, I joked, "the food in this terminal," and the group laughed, except for her. She wound up leaving her backpack unattended about 20 feet away, and a Chicago police officer had to ask her about this as everyone was boarding. I wish they detained her for public drunkenness, but she wound up in first class. :[ However, I ensured karma could have some foothold. Call me lame, and it would be fair, but as I approached the aircraft, I very discreetly told the flight attendant that the woman wearing a certain outfit (described it) was already drunk. As silly as it might sound, I wasn't trying to hit back at this rude woman, per se. I know flight attendants have taken literal and figurative beatings from belligerent and/or drunk passengers, so I wanted to make them aware, rather than unpleasantly surprised while in the air. 

Speaking of getting on the plane, the attendants were all quite welcoming and polite. Better yet, the speakers were playing music I totally love…ABBA and Britney Spears! Inspired choices! 

Here is some GREAT news (with a cameo from my husband's hand because I am a creeper). United has been retrofitting its 737 MAXs (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about any of this!). These planes will be getting seatback IFE. This might seem prosaic to most, but I mostly fly domestic, and coming from ORD, I am not flying domestic on a lot of large planes with every bell and whistle, in the way you might if you flew transcon, like LAX-JFK. Thus, finding robust, new, gleaming IFE? I was so happy! I had a sneaking suspicion I'd see this, based on some casual research, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. Also, there was USB charging, not just the "yes we have charging, don't worry" - but really just rows 1-21 or something, as many airlines (including United) often lead with. The seats were somewhat comfortable too, but not luxurious. They even felt a bit wide. It felt like a step up from regular old economy, and it was nice to see them investing in a product that elevated an economy feeling from the typical one of "cramped, sad cattle."

This is all the more interesting compared to American Airlines reducing its seatback IFE footprint…!

The experience felt very high-end, high-tech, and comfortable. Hats off to United for this!

Hats firmly on, though, for the snafu of being delayed. At first, it was 30ish minutes, which we knew about by the time we were in the security lines (well…not a line for me in pre-check. He doesn't have pre-check/global entry yet, so I call it a "mixed marriage" haha). This initial delay was because the crew was delayed from a previous flight.

When on the plane, they told us that they still needed both pilots, since they were also coming in from a delayed flight! This is not the end off the world, but as the time went by, it got annoying. I give them credit for updating us, but I am not as happy that it didn't really contain numerical estimates. Perhaps they didn't know by then. By the time the pilots arrived, we were ready to go, but…we weren't. Other planes needed to take off, as you'd imagine, so we were stuck in a queue for long enough to make the plane delayed by 2 hours! This was terrible, especially since the flight itself is a manageable 4 hours, but less so when you're sitting for 6 and didn't expect that.

What sweetened the deal, though, was that this drool-worthy IFE was working gate-to-gate, as was the charging. So I lost myself in some TV, punctuated by bits of frustration, I must admit. I thought to myself how cool it would be if my favorite show (30 Rock, with the talented and hilarious Tina Fey) would be featured. I'd seen it on airplanes before. It was on here too! I have re-watched it more times than I can count, but I watched some less-remembered episodes and was thrilled to see them on there. Also, I love Parks and Recreation (with Amy Poehler) and have rewatched it too. But I did the same strategy with some episodes here and had fun watching them. As a history lover and recovering history teacher, I was further elated to see History Channel content on the IFE! The History Channel has become quite silly in its trashy offerings that are not related to history, but this IFE featured its actually history-based content, so I got to learn about the invention of cars and the famous names behind them. 

I very much recommend 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, and the History Channel programming on cars! I also watched a countdown of the world's top 10 stadiums of all time. Despite not being sporty, I like seeing how these huge structures are made and how they look. One of the stadiums they featured was the Colosseum itself! However, I was disheartened that the iconic Wrigley Field (home of the Chicago Cubs baseball team) was not featured. It is historic, beautiful, and fun. Sure, their choice to feature Boston's Fenway Park might have taken care of both similar parks, but it was sad to see the Wrigley snub. It was sadder to see the less-storied, less beautiful rival (White Sox) park featured on the top 10.

This IFE also features standup specials and concerts! I realize that this is pretty common ;)

I don't know a ton of Lizzo's songs but have seen that she is very magnetic and positive, so I watched bits of her concert on the IFE. I fast forwarded to the songs I knew and saw some bits of her talking to the crowd. She is very encouraging to them, and she had fun interactions, such as FaceTiming with someone's mom!

True to form for a newer IFE interface, the map-related functions were staggering in their depth and breadth. I was never out of the loop regarding where we were! 

You can see the variety they offer ^

I didn't try the above feature out on this plane - I knew I'd probably have to use my bluetooth earbuds later in the trip and on the return trip on American ;) so I didn't want them to hurt. I just plugged in my regular wired earbuds (Panasonic, $10 on Amazon, always does the job and feels solid). But it is so cool that they are trying this out.