Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport

The last flight of my mileage run was soon to come. I had 20 minutes before the boarding of my last flight for today and on this mileage run. I decided to make a quick visit in the US Airways Club located at the B concourse.

I was given access and the lounge agent wrote the boarding gate on my boarding pass. I had a glass of water and a few cookies, before I had to leave and walked over to the international terminal, where the gate for this flight was located.

Boarding had not yet started, but the announcement for pre boarding was already made as I arrived and the agent was about to call First Class passengers. So I walked straight to the gate. The gate agent was enforcing the rules and only First Class was allowed to board, as she mentioned only First Class as I approached. As I showed her my boarding pass she said “Oh, you are in First Class”. Hm? What should I think about that? Compared to other passengers I was neither dressed improperly or maybe I was dressed too properly and not just wearing shorts and flip flops like other passengers in First Class?

26 June 2011
PHX – SFO
[Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport – San Francisco International]
US 407 (US Airways); Airbus A 319 (N808AW)
Gate B 26
13:55 – 15:53 [effective 13:53 – 15:49]
First Class
Seat 02 A

Again I was welcomed as I entered the plane. My seat neighbor had already arrived, so I had to ask her to let me pass to my window seat. Overhead space was limited, but no announcements were made where to place carry ons. While Economy Class was boarding, we were offered pre departure drinks. This time it was only water for me.

Despite the fact, that the flight was full and the boarding took some time, we were able to push back in time at 13:53 and taxied for the runway. The safety demonstration was done during push back. The captain had already welcomed us on board and gave us and update of the flight and the weather. He expected an arrival ahead of schedule in San Francisco and a smooth ride.

At 14:05 we took off and climbed into the sunny sky above Phoenix.

N808AW was delivered from the Airbus factory in Hamburg to America West on September 30, 1999. It was equipped with two IAE V2524-A5 engines, which have a thrust of 23,500 lbf (105 kN).
The plane was equipped with 12 seats in First Class and 112 seats in Economy in the usual layout offering two inch more seat pitch in Economy Class than Lufthansa in its NEK cabin. And I had even four inch more in my first class seat.

If one considers that there has been a time, as the European Airlines considered themselves way ahead of the US airlines and in terms of service they have had the better product, this has changed dramatically in the last years. Not only according to the cabin layout, also service has been reduced. And given the current fares of European Airlines for a Business Class ticket for flights within Europe where you are stucked in a seat with a generous seat pitch of 30 inch, I would prefer the wider seat of US Airways. And service was not bad on all flights so far – and this flight was no exception.

But let me come back to this flight from PHX to SFO.

Once we were in the air and the fasten seat belt signs switched off, the crew began with the beverage service. We were asked for our choice of beverage and could also choose from the offerings of the snack basket. I declined the snack offerings, but went for another ginger ale.

The flight was nice, a smooth ride with no cloud in the sky and great views, especially during our flight towards San Francisco. I also updated my trip report but every now and then I enjoyed the views out of the window. There were a few ski resorts visible as we flew over the mountains and there was still snow on some of the mountain. I had heard in the radio and also saw in TV that it was possible to do skiing in July 4 as some ski resorts were still open and close only after the US National holiday.

During our final approach we got nice views towards Lick Observatory and the city of San Jose with its airport. Unfortunately we approached SFO from the wrong direction to get views of the city and the Golden Gate bridge.

We touched down at 15:43 and had to wait on the tarmac to let a few planes pass before we could continue to taxi to our gate. The Paris bound A 380 of Air France was at the gate as well as the London bound 747 of British Airways. But the waiting time was not long and the taxiing to the terminal short.

I left the plane as one of the first passengers and walked towards the Airtrain station for the ride to the BART station.

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