Review of United flight Washington → Newark in Domestic First

weekend in italy

I had a good friend's wedding just north of Milan on Labor Day weekend.  While I would have normally extended this trip to take a full week in Italy, my work situation made it impossible.  I was pretty happy to be able to go at all.

Of course, despite having a easy IAD-BRU-MXP flight set up originally, Brussels Airlines would cancel its flight on me for the second year in a row. What are the odds this happens for the exact same flight and more or less in the same season? By the time the flight was cancelled, business class available on UA's IAD-BRU was full; the EWR-MXP flight was also full. Eventually I ended up with this very unfortunate DCA-EWR-BRU-MXP routing that also had me spend a miserably long layover at BRU. Luckily, I was able to score a very-sought-after last-minute reservation at The Jane in nearby Antwerp, which I proceeded to enjoy on my layover.

DCA united club

DCA is familiar enough and proceeding through security was quick and efficient.  I had never actually been to the United Club here though, as I don't have a club membership and rarely initiate an international itinerary from DCA.

As an aside, the DCA Amex Centurion Lounge looks nowhere near finished.  I wouldn't expect it until Spring 2024 at the earliest.

The lounge is one main circular room with the bar attached and a small food area next to it.  Walking along the long corridor on the right side, there are bathrooms and a few working/phone booths.  At the end of the long corridor is another sitting area.

Why is the outdoor terrace blocked?  Missed opportunity here.

Here's the catering in the lounge, not much too look at, but about par for course I think of United Clubs.

The lounge's WiFi was reasonably fast.

ua4394

My flight to Newark would be on N546GJ, a 15-years old CRJ-550.  No idea when it was actually refurbished into a CRJ-550.

Boarding began promptly at 12:35pm as scheduled. 

United's CRJ-550s have 50 seats and the F cabin is arranged in a 1-2 configuration for a total of 10 seats.

I was seated in 4A this flight, which is a fairly comfortable seat right across from the baggage lockers.  These seats have an impressive 42 inches of pitch and USB charging ports can be found under the armrest.

In the middle of the plane there is a locker area for storing full-size carry-ons.

The Captain came on around 12:50pm to announce a flight time of 37 minutes and we pushed back on time at 1pm.  However, about 11 minutes after pushing back, the captain informed us that due to heavy traffic at Newark, we had been told to wait and assigned a wheels up time of 1:31pm.  One thing in the last 5 or so years that I've appreciated from United is how proactive the flight crew have become in terms of communicating delays and the reason for them.  I don't think most other airlines compare in terms of the detail that is regularly communicated to passengers.

Sure enough, we began taxing again around 1:25pm and took off at 1:30pm.  One thing I'll never get tired of is the takeoff/landing views from DCA.

To my great surprise, there was actually a beverage service on this flight.  In my past shuttle flights, you often get no service given how short it is.  I think this probably had to do with the fact that there was a trainee onboard in addition to the usual single flight attendant.  Cheyenne, the trainee, handled the service.  I just had a bottle of water.

We landed at 2:10 and arrived at Gate C109 6 minutes later.  It took another 5 minutes before someone connected the jet bridge.