| Home | Flights | Hotels | Diary |
San Francisco International
I took the BART train from Powell Street station to San Francisco international airport where. I arrived 40 minutes later. I checked in at one of the self check in kiosks in the international terminal and walked towards terminal 3.
At the security checkpoint of terminal 3 were long lines, but the lines moved quite fast and I was through it in approximately 15 minutes. I headed to the international terminal as the gate 75 for my flight to LAX was closer to the Red Carpet Club of the international terminal than the one in terminal 3. I spent the next 75 minutes in the Red Carpet Club catching up with e-mails, researching something for clients and finalizing some hotel / stay reports.
I could see the gate from the lounge and the plane had not arrived 10 minutes prior to boarding time. I checked the monitors and the gate 75 was still correct and the flight showing on time. Is it only me who has the impression the indication of a delay is announced quite late? I mean, if the flight is not there 10 minutes prior to scheduled boarding time, it is very clear that there will be a delay. Or are they really hoping to turn around a plane in 20 minutes?
I decided to leave the lounge and walk down to the gate. As I approached the desk the flight was still on time, but still no plane there. A few minutes later the board at the gate switched to a delay of ten minutes as the plane finally pulled up. The gate agent made only one announcement about the delay and otherwise called those people, who were on the standby or upgrade list. Later the flight was showing a delay of 20 minutes and we boarded close to 30 minutes late. This was not that bad given the fact that the plane had arrived at the gate at 11:47.
I boarded as Star Gold, Premier Executives and Premiers were invited to board the plane. First, Global Services and 1Ks were already on board the plane as the first group.
What I still dislike is the lack of information in SFO. The agents are not informing passengers about a delay and they do not keep them updated. Even when the text messages arrived announcing the delay, they gave no information to the waiting passengers, so those with text alerts informed the waiting passengers.
not that many planes with the new livery in 2011
27 June 2011
SFO – LAX
[San Francisco International – Los Angeles International]
UA 956 (United Airlines); Airbus A 320 (N414UA)
Gate 75
12:00 – 13:29 [effective 12:32 – 14:00]
Economy Class
Seat 28 D
I was welcomed on board by the two flight attendants standing at the door and in the front galley. I walked through the First Class Cabin and passed the Economy Plus seats and took my seat in the back of the plane. I had decided against buying a seat in Economy Plus on this short flight. My rule for thumb is that only for flight over 2 hours it is Economy Plus for me.
The flight was full and again many passengers had carry ons which were way oversized. Announcements were made asking passengers to store larger items in the overhead bin and smaller under the seat. But many people did not really care how they stored their belongings. It would have been possible to store more carry on, if a few passengers put the carry on with the smaller side into the bin, not the larger one. And the flight attendants did not really cared either. To them it was easier to simply gate check the luggage instead of rearranging them. So a few passengers had to gate check their carry on, although this would not really have been necessary. This is the time, when I like my Star Gold status. Boarding with the first people could save a lot of hassle if it comes to overhead space.
Despite the delay boarding was completed quite fast at 12:30 and soon the doors were closed.
The safety demonstration was done by showing the video on the screens. I already had plugged in my headphone, as channel 9 was available on this flight. We were pushed back at and taxied to the runway half an hour late. The captain came over the microphone and told us, he would try to make up some time in the air. He had already asked for an advanced take off time as he was running late. I think he got it, than we were prior on the runway than a flight which has been pushed back ahead of us.
We took off at 12:50 and climbed into the cloudy and foggy sky above the Bay.
Our Airbus A 320 joined to the fleet of United Airlines on July 12, 1994. It was first equipped with 12 seats in First Class and 126 seats in Economy Class. On December 17, 2005 it was transferred to TED. TED was the low cost subsidiary of United and in so far the plane was changed to an all Economy configuration with 156 seats in Economy. The history of TED was short, as United closed down TED and so the plane came back to the mainline on January 06, 2009 and re-fitted with 12 seats in First Class and 132 seats in Economy Class.
First Class is in 2-2 configuration with a seat pitch of 38 inch (two inch more than US Airways) and a seat width of 20.5 inch. Economy Plus has a seat pitch of 36 inch and Economy of 31 inch. Both Economy cabins are in 3-3 configuration with a seat width of 18 inch.
United has a large fleet of close to 100 Airbus A 320 and all are equipped with the V2527-A5 engine by IAE with a thrust of 27,000 lbf (120 kN).
Once in the air, the crew did a beverage round in Economy. The flight itself was smooth and I listened to channel 9. With a flight time of only 47 minutes, it was a short hop and soon we began our descend into LAX. We touched down on runway 24 L on 13:44. Therefore we had to taxi around the Bradley international terminal to terminal 7, where the UA gates were located. We arrived at the gate 70A at 14:00, which meant 31 minutes late.
Deboarding was a zoo, as a few families with children were in the plane. The behavior of one family was very annoying because the parents were sitting together in Economy Plus two rows in front of their three and five year old children and were asking them to leave the plane with them. Unfortunately the parents were blocking the aisle and do not let the passengers in the row behind them pass, so the children had no space to exit their row. Instead they asked the children to climb over the two rows. A few passengers complained about the behavior, not so much about these of the children but the stupidity of the parents. And to make things worse, they forgot the luggage of their children and had to go back. Unfortunately, they again do not let anybody behind them pass and everybody else had to go back, too. Many passengers complained and the father answered in a very snobbish way, he was entitled to sit in Economy Plus due to his Premier status and we had not idea about his importance. I had noticed the two pink carry on, one on the floor in the row and one in the overhead bin. While I picked up the one from the row, another passenger got the one from the overhead bin. This passenger was holding Eurobonus Gold Status of Star Alliance member airline SAS as he boarded ahead of me and I could see his boarding pass and we had exchanged a few words. He must have seen my boarding pass as well, as he gave the carry on to the important father adding ”With greetings from two lovely Star Golds to an important Star Silver”. The very important father was now upset and wanted to say something as another passengers asked him to finally get out of the way and move towards the exit and not holding everybody back.
I exchanged a few more words with the Eurobonus Star Gold who was going to a conference and who was slightly annoyed by the family. He thought a family should sit together and if this is not possible one parent should sit with one child while the other parent with the other child or at least take care of their carry on. But the attitude of getting Economy Plus and putting the children elsewhere without being really close and look after them during the flight, he thought that this was inappropriate. Somehow I agree.
In the concourse, I headed towards the exit to catch a shuttle toward the car rental station. Close to 20 minutes no bus of Hertz, but then three buses pulled up at the same time.