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Chicago O'Hare
I
checked in the morning the flight status and saw that my flight out
of ORD to IAD was delayed by nearly an hour while the flight out of
IAD to MIA was nearly on time and therefore I would probably have
missed by connection.
The weather on this day let expect more flight to be delayed or canceled
As advised by cawhite I headed to the
airport a bit earlier and did a visit in the Red Carpet Club near
gate B 6 to check with one of the agents there. It seems that
everybody was fine with the ticket. As expected they were unable to
issue me a boarding pass for my flight from Frankfurt to Düsseldorf.
So I sat down in the Red Carpet Club, used one of my drink chits for
a glass of wine and worked on my trip report.
At around 13:00 Idecided to move to the Red Carpet Club in the C Concourse. I had a
visit at the gate to ask about the schedule boarding time as the
flight was already half an hour delayed and was told it was around
13:35. I went to the nearby Red Carpet Club and took a seat and read
a bit. The monitors were indicating the flight would be delayed for
another hour and boarding time was now announced for 14:40. I finally
left the lounge around this time and boarding begun just a bit later
around 14:55 through two doors, one for Business and First Class
passengers, the other one for the Economy Class Passengers.
As I
was seated in section 1 I approached the second door and was among
the first passengers from Economy to board the plane.
26
February 2008
ORD – FRA
[Chicago O’Hare – Frankfurt]
UA
944 (United); Boeing 777 (N776UA)
Gate C 14
14:32 – 05:40 [effective
15:45 – 06:40]
Economy Plus Class
Seat 32 H
I
stored my belonging in one of the overhead compartments and took my
seat, Pillows and blankets were placed on the seat. The most
passengers were sitting in the normal Economy Cabin and Economy Plus
was only half full, while Economy seems to be very full and also
Business looked quite full.
Seat 32 J at the window was taken and
as other passengers I moved to seat 32 G after all passengers had
boarded the aircraft.
There was made an announcement,
surprisingly only in German, that the passengers in Economy Plus had
paid for this seat and it was not allowed moving into this cabin.
There would be a control of passengers in their seat and if anybody
was not in the seat back in Economy, their luggage would be
unloaded.
We finally pushed back at 14:45 after we were fueled up.
The service supervisor came over the microphone and apologized for
the delay. The safety demonstration was done by the flight attendants
the time we were still standing at the gear and also headphones were
distributed at this time.
We headed to our runway – one
could follow the conversation between cockpit and flight control as
channel 9 was available on this flight. Finally at 15:57 we were
airborne. Already at the ground the captain had informed us that he
expected an arrival not that late, as we were flying with the jet
stream.
Twenty minutes after take off a first beverage round
was done and another twenty minutes later the meal service begun. The
question this time: “Beef or pasta?”. It seemed they had
forgotten to load special meals, as Indian passengers did not get the
vegetarian meal. The crew forced them to pasta. This caused a bit of
a trouble and one tray fell on the floor by dealing with this issue.
The crew was okay. One flight attendant did never smile and it seems
she was somehow angry. She also did not harmonize with her colleague
while doing service. The team running the service at the other aisle
seemed to harmonize better. Anyway, I have had worse crews on
United.
Meal service took app. 45 minutes and it was done with
another round of beverages. Tea and coffee and also another round of
beverages followed after meal service.
Around two hours after
take off the cabin light was dimmed.
I spend the flight time
with reading in one of my books and some work on this trip report on
my laptop. The nice thing sitting in Economy Plus is you can work
with a laptop even if the passenger in the seat in front of you
reclined his seat.
Economy seems to be really full and it was
nice to have a few empty seats aside. But I think some passengers in
the rear part of the plane were not that amused about not being
allowed to move to this section of the plane. And I would also not be
very pleased to sit in the back of the cabin.
The flight
attendants came every now and then with a bottle of water through the
cabin.
App. an hour before the scheduled arrival time in
Frankfurt the crew distributed the snack box, with contained
pastries, slices of pineapple and a yoghurt. A beverage round was
also done and I opted for a coffee. Again, the service level was
different. As soon as a passenger answered the question about his
choice of beverage not at once, they became somehow angry. And would
it be that difficult to add a few words instead of “Want
coffee”.
The empty snack boxes were soon collected and if
they were not closed they crews hand them back to the passengers, so
he could close them …
After the snack service the cabin
turned the lights on and the cabin were prepared for the landing.
Around 06:10 in the morning we began our final approach into
Frankfurt.
The landing gear was lowered but suddenly the pilot
powered the engines again and it must been second before we touched
down. We climbed again and the captain came over the microphone and
telling us that the plane before us had not cleared the runway and
therefore we had to climb again. He expected us to circle another
twenty minutes above FRA before he began a new approach.
It
was interesting to listen to channel 9 at this time and the flight
attendant who made the German announcement mentioned channel 9 at
this time again. He had done this quite a few times during the flight
time. I have never heard the availability announced that often during
the flight time as on this flight.
At 06:40, an hour after our
schedule arrival, we finally touched down and arrived at our gate at
the C concourse app. five minutes later. It took a couple of minutes
before we were finally able to disembark through the C and F cabin
into the terminal.