Boarding
Even though I had access to the United Club as both a club member and a 1K member flying internationally, I didn’t have time to visit the United Club because my incoming flight was delayed. I also had to make my way from gate E20 to C11 in a span of about 20 minutes.
Boarding began right on schedule at 9:32 am.
I was greeted by a very friendly female flight attendant.
I was also very happy to see when I boarded that this A319 was retrofitted with the new cabin, featuring the new seatback IFE and seats.
The United Business cabin on the A319 is arranged in a 2-2 configuration across three rows, for a total of 12 seats. Each seat features 4 inches of recline, 37 inches of pitch, and 21.1 inches of width.
I quickly found my seat 3F, a window seat in the last row of the right side of the aircraft.
The seat has a center console on the left with a universal power outlet, the tray table, and the headphone jack. There’s also a remote control for the IFE.
In the right armrest, there’s a button for your seat recline as well as a small cubby that’s perfect for a tablet or a notebook.
The seat has a window with excellent views of the engine.
Pre-Departure
At 9:38, the flight attendant brought by a pre departure beverage of either water or sparkling wine. I went with sparkling wine since I didn’t have a chance to get a mimosa in the United Club!
At 9:59, the captain came on to welcome us aboard and announce our flight time of 1 hour and 14 minutes. He also told us that we’d have quite a long taxi because of the way the winds were, we had to depart on one of the 33 runways, which are on the other side of the airport.
At 10:04, the safety video played.
The Flight
We pushed back at 10:07, and began our taxi. At that point, the flight attendant came by and asked for drink orders for when we were in the air. I ordered a gin and tonic.
We then had our long taxi over to the runway.
When we lined up on the runway, you could see a line of aircraft waiting for departure.
At 10:49, we were rolling down runway 33L for departure.
At 10:52, we reached 10,000 feet, meaning we were well on our way to Monterrey.
At 11:08, my gin and tonic was brought out.
At 11:08, the captain came on to announce that we were at our cruising altitude of 38,000 feet.
At 11:09, a snack basket was passed around. My favorite is Dot’s homestyle pretzels, so I selected those.
While we were cruising, I noticed that the cabin had mood lighting, which was nice.
At 11:20, the flight attendant came by offering another round of drinks. I accepted the offer.
At 11:28, another round of snacks was offered. I declined, but this was really proactive service!
Descent and Arrival into Monterrey
At 11:34, the captain came on to announce that we were beginning our descent into Monterrey and that we’d be touching down in Monterrey in about 30 minutes.
At 12:01, we touched down on runway 16.
We parked at our gate in Terminal A at 12:05, only 14 minutes behind schedule.
Loved this review Shivpilot, thanks for sharing!
As a 1K, wondering if you ever get any tarmac transfers? I know it’s rarer for 1Ks but curious as I sometimes hear about them.
Nice to see the A319s getting the new interiors, UA seems to be doing a fast rollout of these new interiors and they are very elegant (the Bluetooth features is the best).
Guess we are on the same page about those pretzels. Delicious! Service seems good as well, 2 rounds of drinks and snacks on a short flight!
Thanks for sharing!
I have never gotten a tarmac transfer! But if you look at my review from MTY-IAH that I just posted, you’ll see that I got a surprising escort to the gate!
Oops, hadn't gotten around to reading that review yet. Just checked it out, that's quite cool (also a little bit funny the escorts response at the end). I wish more airports would have this for 1K but then there would be too many escorts everywhere with the amount of 1Ks 😅.