Review of United flight from San Francisco to Honolulu in Economy

Background

This series covers a recent trip down to Oahu. The outbound flight was booked on UA from SFO to HNL, there are a hodgepodge of planes used on this route (B737, B757, B777). We picked the 13:40 departure to get into HNL in time for dinner (or so we thought). This choice left us with a B772 in the retro-UA cabins (B77G configuration), which are probably about as bad as it gets in all cabins (J is 2-4-2 and Y is 3-4-3).

Routing

Check-in/Security

We arrived at SFO T2 about 2 hours before departure. After doing the bag drop at the PremierAccess area, we head off towards security.

As has been a common occurrence recently, the TSA PreCheck line is longer than regular security. We are airside in less than 5 minutes so no major complaints.

Our plane is leaving from Concourse F, but we head straight past the United Club at Concourse E and walk over to Concourse D.

No surprises at who runs the show here at T2.

Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge

At Concourse D, we head upstairs to head into the Maple Leaf Lounge.

A quick stroll through the seating areas near the entrance, which are bathed by natural light and have good tarmac views.

Straight back to the dining room area in the back.

The hot buffet items along with 2 soups (to the right). The empty items were replaced after the photo.

The lunch offering.

The mural of San Francisco in the lounge.

The lounge also has its own outdoor terrace, which is always a nice space to get some fresh air and sunshine while watching the movements below.

The arrival of the KL B78X is always a highlight for my son.

With the arrival of our plane from IAH, we get up and leave the lounge to head back to Concourse F.

Pre-flight

The UA overflow into Concourse D.

The walk back through Concourse E.

The new temporary connector to Concourses F/G now that renovations are finally underway.

Our plane was due to leave from F22, so we have the long walk all the way to the far reaches of the fork.

A UA B789 prepping for a rotation to ORD.

Our plane today will be N212UA, a 2000-built B772 that has been with United its entire 24-year history. Given its age, it is no surprise that it will have the retro-UA cabins with a 77G configuration featuring 28 business seats in a 2-4-2 configuration and 336 Y economy seats in a 3-4-3 configuration to operate high-density domestic hub rotations.

Boarding

After pre-boarding which contained ~50-75 people, we boarded with Group 1 in the ~100 people queue.

We were greeted with our DIY cabin cleaning equipment and coldly asked if we knew which aisle to use. What surprised me is that there were no kids packs on this leisure route, we got them on almost every other domestic route this year.

Making our way to our seats in the rear of the first economy cabin. The plane has not aged well and is as dark, drab, and yellow as the photo suggests.

A strafing shot of an Economy Plus row enroute.

Blankets were pre-placed on the seats, but no pillows.

Seat pitch is only 31", but thanks to the removal of in-flight magazines feels better. However, at 17" width feels very narrow and tight.

Our DIY cleaning kit handed out at boarding to clean the dirty tray tables.

Poorly placed controls in the top of the armrest that are easy to bump with your elbow, which is maybe why the crew ignore the call buttons?

The view from our seat will be of the large shiny wing.

The seat back contents are a crumpled up safety card that had pages stuck together with something sticky, service menu, and some trash.

No in-seat IFE, it will be the standard streaming services. The seat does contain a device holder.

The advertised in-seat power will remain red (inactive) throughout the flight, the row ahead of us was green and across the aisle was green. There are no USB ports in these seats.

The BOB menu, UA has only returned complimentary meals on longer flights to Hawaii.

UA didn't skimp in installing overhead air vents, but everything was misaligned with the re-configuration (densification) of the plane so the overhead lights were useless since they were pointed behind our heads.

Flight

We completed boarding, but the front door didn't close. At 13:20, the pilot made an announcement were waiting for crew, which in my mind meant for our flight. After another 20 minutes, he came back on and announced we were still waiting for crew to board since we would need to shuttle a couple of B787 crew to HNL to recover a plane that had problems in-flight and had to divert to HNL from SIN. No idea why they needed to delay our flight an hour versus just putting them on the flight that was due to leave ~90 minutes after us, but that's UA.

We finally push back at 14:20 and the safety demonstration is done manually since there are no screens on the plane.

Luckily from Concourse F, it is a short taxi to the runways. Crossing a UA B737.

Speaking of incapacitated planes, F-GZNC was stuck at SFO after the cancellation of AF83 the day before.

We quickly reach the end of the airport and swing around to align on runway 28L.

We had a rolling take off at 14:33 almost an hour late, but get some good glimpses of SFO as we start our trek to the coast.

Crossing the 101.

Last views of the mainland as we turn to start our trek across the Pacific to the southwest.

Our route out of SFO.

As soon as we leveled off, the agriculture declarations were handed out.

Service soon followed with the distribution of snacks.

Knowing we wouldn't have the chance to eat again for >5 hours, we went ahead and partook in the limited BOB offerings. The cheese and fruit tray:

The Pretzel Beer Cheeseburger:

Drinks were then offered and full cans were provided.

There is no in-seat IFE, it can all be accessed through the Wi-Fi streaming services. Wi-Fi itself is available for $10 ($8 for UA MileagePlus members), which is decent value given the flight length.

About halfway through the flight, we saw a flight attendant passing out waters. He gave me the last cup and said he would come grab a new bottle to give one to my wife. He returned 5 minutes later and apologized saying he was told not to distribute water.

Nothing to see the whole flight, but clouds over the Pacific. About 90-minutes before arrival, the crew came on and announced that since there might be turbulence approaching Hawaii, they would cancel the second service.

As the plane started its descent, glasses of water were handed out. The promised turbulence never happened and the seat belt sign never turned on, so assume the cancellation of the second service was down to pure laziness of the hidden crew. Our son was hungry, so he asked if they had any pretzels left over, the FA handing out water just dismissively said no.

First sight of land as we pass north of Molokai.

The approach into HNL.

First sight of Oahu.

Crossing over Waikiki.

Golden hour is in full effect as we align for arrival into HNL.

We touch down on runway 8L at 17:48, over 30 minutes late.

Spoilers deployed as we exit the runway to get a glimpse of the sunset.

We pull into our gate at HNL T2 at 17:53.

Strafing shot of the center sections as we deplane through L2.

Since we arrived in G, we have a long walk back to the main terminal.

The highlight of HNL T2 is the outdoor walkways between concourses allowing for some nice smells of jet fuel and plane spotting.

Back inside, we will head down to the baggage claim. Priority bags will of course not be respected by UA so ours will be one of the last to circulate and we will finally leave the airport around 18:30.

I'll leave off this series here as we start our stay in Oahu, thanks for stopping by!

Flight Information

United Airlines, UA300
Equipment: Boeing B777-200 [N212UA, delivered July 2020]
Departure: 13:40 (ATD: 14:33)
Arrival: 17:15 (ATA: 17:48)
Flight time: 5:15