Review of United flight Berlin → Washington in Economy

Hi aviation fans & travelers and welcome to another trip report! I hope that you are having a great summer so far. As this season is one of the busiest time of the year for traveling, I feel that this is also a good time to post a couple of my recent flights, this one being my trip from Berlin to Washington Dulles, and the other one (coming up soon) my flight from Newark to Berlin, which I took in early May. I'm still working on getting organized with all the pictures that I took, and since I got the ones from my most recent trip together first, I decided to begin with this flight.
Hope you all have a great upcoming week, stay safe and happy flying! :)

Today's flight across the Atlantic will be on United's Boeing 767-400ER. United just introduced its second nonstop service from Berlin to the U.S., with regular flights to Washington DC. Delta Airlines has also resumed its operations to and from Germany's capital city, flying from
New York JFK, ever since Berlin-Tegel Airport closed. Even though this was the third time for me at BER, I still find it hard to believe that this new airport actually ever opened! It took the project a lot longer to be finished than originally planned, and I soon realized how "efficient" this airport really is, but more on that later.

The scheduled departure time for my flight to Dulles was 11:10 am, something which wasn't going to happen, and little did I know at that point that BER's "efficiency" was going to cause a delay. But again, I'll tell you more about that later. For now, let's head to the gate…

My ride to IAD. Today's aircraft is a Boeing 767-400ER, an extended version of the 767. The model was built in 1996 and sold in January the following year. Delta and United are the only carriers that still operate this jet, and although it's one of the oldest planes, I still love it!

"Starting this summer, daily nonstop flights from Berlin to Washington D.C. The only direct connection from capital to capital."

A couple of gates over, another United Boeing 767-400ER, in Star Alliance livery, bound for Newark-Liberty International Airport (EWR). 

UA Flight 963 being pushed back 15 minutes early, for its 8.5-hour journey to Newark.

Boarding began shortly after 10 am, and I was in boarding group 3. 

My seat, 33A. I always like to sit behind the wing, as it is so exciting to watch the aerodynamics, such as the flaps, spoilers, and ailerons operating! :) 
To my surprise, however, the inflight entertainment (IFE) screens were still turned off, and they were going to be for the whole flight.
With that being said, let me tell you the rest of the story:
Boarding was completed on time, the lead flight attendant made his announcement, welcomed us on board, and everything seemed to be fine, and I assumed that the IFE screens would come on soon. Then, just a few minutes before we were scheduled to leave, the Captain made an announcement and said that there were a couple of technical issues, both with the IFE and the onboard Wi Fi. He informed us that there were mechanics on board trying to fix it, and he would get back to us as soon as new updates become available. I thought, well, it is an inconvenience to not have any sort of entertainment on a flight this long, but in my personal opinion, this is no reason to delay a flight, since it's nothing important for the aircraft. But oh well, we waited. For 30 minutes. It was nearly half an hour past our scheduled departure time until the Captain finally reached out to us again and said that the mechanics weren't able to fix it, and he finally wanted to get us going, but asked us for a few more minutes of patience, because the mechanics have to perform paperwork to report the issues in detail. About another 15 minutes went by, the time was about 11:45 am, and then the Captain talked to us with some more bad news: "Ladies and Gentlemen, once again from the flight deck. We are just as frustrated as you are. It turns out that there is also a technical issue with the jet bridge. For some reason, they cannot get it away from the plane, so they have to take a look at it as well." 
At that moment, I thought, well, this kind of stuff happens, of course. But how come, several technical issues adding up only happen at BER?? Just a week before this trip, there was a power outage at the airport resulting in a complete shutdown of air traffic. Now, here we are with another problem! 

While we were waiting, I looked outside and saw a storm cloud coming in, at which point, I got worried that our flight might get delayed even more, although I know that planes can fly safely even in these conditions. However, a little later, it started to rain heavily, and the visibility dropped. Luckily, it didn't last long, and the storm eventually headed northeast.

Beautiful weather, isn't it?! ;)

By the time the Austrian and Brussels Airlines planes next to us had departed, we received the first good news of the day: the jet bridge had been fixed, removed from the plane, the paperwork was done, and we were finally cleared for pushback! Everybody started clapping when we finally started moving. :)
You can watch the video of our departure below. Enjoy! :)

As you can hear in the video, after takeoff the lead flight attendant made another announcement and informed us that the Wi Fi was working again, so at least I was able to have a bit of entertainment by watching a few YouTube videos, but the IFE screens remained inoperative for the entire flight, so I wasn't able to take any pictures of the flight info, route, entertainment options, or any of that. I apologize!

Banking right. Our route was going to be a little further North, to make up some time, and we later had a couple of nice views over Scotland as a result of that. :)

Somewhere over the Netherlands. I've been to a couple of rural areas there, but I still need to visit Amsterdam! :)

Starting to leave the Dutch coast behind…

As we reached the English Channel, lunch was served. As usual in Economy, two choices were available; chicken or pasta. I chose the pasta, which came with a salad, a bun with butter as well as some chocolate. It was very delicious, although I missed having some dressing with the salad, but no big deal. :)

Somewhere over England.

The Scottish Highlands are truly breathtaking! Scotland is also on my bucket list! :)

Our Atlantic crossing began soon after passing the Northern Highlands and the Outer Hebrides.

Another plane nearby! :) One of the greatest things about being a pilot is that when there is another aircraft nearby, they like to communicate with their neighbor and ask where they come from. When you fly, you come from all kinds of parts of the world, but when you don't fly, you come from the grocery store or running other errands, haha. :) The world is a small place.

Even though Covid is over, United still hands out sanitizing wipes during boarding. It's always good to take precautionary measures. :)

As we approached the coast of Canada, the flight attendants served some beverages. At that time, I typically go for a cup of coffee (with milk and sugar, of course :)).

Some of our flight data (www.flightaware.com)

About an hour before arrival into IAD, the flight attendants served a light snack, which was bread with salami.

Soon afterwards, the First Officer announced our descent into Dulles. The weather was nice, a mixture of clouds and sun, mild temperatures, and good visibility. By flying a little further North over the Atlantic, we were able to pick up a bit of time by at least 15 minutes, and because I had over two hours to get to my connecting flight, I had nothing to worry about.

As we approached Dulles airport, the lead flight attendant made an announcement, saying that he made a phone call with United's corporate office in Chicago, and they said every passenger will receive a travel voucher for the issues that we encountered. A really nice gesture! By the way, if you ever have an experience like this, visit united.com/unitedcares

I do apologize for not making a video of the landing, the final approach was a bit bumpy, but I hope that you enjoy the rest. :)