San Juan Luis Muñoz Marin International

I had approximately two hours to kill in San Juan. There were no lounge options for me in San Juan, as the Star Alliance had no lounges in San Juan. The only lounge available was the American Airlines Admirals Club, but a day pass was a hefty 50 USD and unfortunately they do not participate in the Priority Pass network. So I decided to stroll around and see if I can find a quiet place at one of the gates close to the US Airways gates. But this part of the airport was a zoo. So I decided to walk through the terminal and stretching my legs was not a bad idea. There were a few food outlets in the terminal. Finally at the American Airlines gates I discovered a quieter place close to the area for unaccompanied minors. With an iced café latte from the Starbucks outlet and the New York Times I spent the next 75 minutes there before I slowly went back to the gates with a few visits at Duty Free and Hudson outlets.

Star Alliance Sign at the US Gate was not quite up to date ... Varig on it, Swiss missing, ...

As I reached the gate, I noticed that the US 1031 flight for Charlotte, which should have departed at 12:55 was still at the gate at 13:40. The jetbridge was at this time still connected with the plane and the door was not yet closed. This did not look promising for my flight, as usually one delay means there were more delays to come. But the gate agent promised an on time arrival and departure of my flight. We will see … I had approximately 90 minutes between flights in Charlotte and there was at least one later flight to Philadelphia this evening - so nothing to worry about. At least our plane arrived shortly after the earlier flight was pushed back.

Scheduled boarding time was called for 14:00 and had already passed and still were people leaving the plane. Hm … really an on time departure I asked myself. I was somehow skeptical about it, on the other hand I had experienced quite a few times, that they can speed thing up if they have to.

And it seems they were exactly doing this now. 20 minutes after the scheduled boarding time, the boarding started with families traveling with small children as well as people needing additional time. Soon, the boarding zone was a mess with everybody queuing, although neither they fit the description family nor they looked like they needed additional time. The gate agent however, was enforcing the boarding and nobody was allowed to board not fitting into the announced group. After families, it was time for first class passengers and Star Gold. Again everybody jumped up but the gate agent turned the non-privileged traveler away.

25 June 2011
SJU – CLT
[San Juan Luis Muñoz Marin International – Charlotte / Douglas International]
US 1033 (US Airways); Airbus A 321 (N190UW)
Gate B 37
14:45 – 18:28 [effective 14:47 – 18:20]
First Class
Seat 02 F

I entered the plane as one of the first passengers in First Class. Entering the plane I was greeted by the crew and stored my hand luggage in the overhead bins and the laptop under the seat in front of me. This time I had a window seat.

The cabin was not yet finally prepared and the right door was still open and the catering company was delivering the trolleys with the meals right now.

The cabin filled with passengers and it was again a full flight. This time, there were not that many announcements asking passengers to store larger items in the overhead bin and smaller under the seat.
I was surprised to notice, that boarding completed was announced only 20 minutes after the start. That meant boarding was done in half of the 45 minutes calculated.

Safety demonstration was done while we were waiting at the gate with the cargo door open. The flight attendant read it from the book and it sounded as she had done it many times and did not really care and so behaved the flight attendant performing the demonstration in the first part of the cabin. Meanwhile the cargo door was closed and we were pushed back at 14:47, nearly on time.

We taxied to the runway with only a United Airbus A 320 bound for Washington in front of us it was our turn for take-off at 15:03.

This Airbus A 320 was older and came to US Airways on March 05, 2001 as new plane from Hamburg, where the A 320 is built. It made its first flight a month earlier. The first registration was N160US but the plane had to be re-registered in January 2007 and received the registration N190UW.
The cabin layout was the same as on all other Airbus A 320 planes on this trip. But unlike the flight to San Juan, this plane used the CFM56-5B3 engines by CFMI. This engine type was originally designed to power the A321, but with a thrust range between 22,000 and 33,000 lbf (or 98 kN to 147 kN) it can power A318 / A319 and A320 as well. It is the most numerous engine supplied to Airbus. The CFM56-5B3 has a thrust of 33,000 lbf or 150 kN, which is more or less the same thrust level compared to the 147 kN of the A321 with the V2533-A5 engines of IAE on my flight to San Juan.

We climbed into the sky above San Juan and made a left turn. Sitting on the right side of the plane, this meant I got unfortunately no view towards the city of San Juan.

Once airborne the crew remained seated for the first 15 minutes. And this time it was not “jump into action” but slowly starting the service.

Interestingly I noticed how different the crews performed their actions in the front galley. This flight attendant came around with a tray and asked for our choice of beverage but did not take orders for the menu. She then brought us our choice of beverage. Once done this, the cart was taken out of its storage and place on the other side of the galley next to the door. She put all plates from the trays and placed them elsewhere. After she did this, she warmed the towels and offered them soon later to us passengers. At least this was done at the same time as on the other flights.

She collected them later and in the meantime she continued to prepare the trays and asked for our choice of lunch menu. She never really smiled while she asked us, but I would not rate her as unfriendly. It is difficult to describe it – but it seems, she was remembering the better days of flying and had an appearance as she thinks we did not really deserve to fly up front.

The choice for lunch was a tropical salad with chicken breast or a chicken sandwich. I choose the later. I had asked for tonic water earlier but decided to have a glass of white wine to accompany sandwich which was soon delivered. I was not addressed by name.

The sandwich was not the healthiest option and honestly I have to admit the salad looked much better. But I would not describe the salad as tropical. This however was the reason I choose the sandwich, as I do not like fruits in my salad and tropical usually means salad with fruits. Not so in this case … It looked more like a Caesar salad.

Trays were cleared individually by the flight attendant serving first class. Later a cookie was offered, which I accepted. The attentiveness of the flight attendant was not that high anymore after the meal service, but I was offered a refill of my now empty wine glass which I thankfully accepted. She smiled as I got my refill and every asked if needed anything else. I was a little bit an up and down, one time only doing the job and the other time being friendly. Plates from the cookies were cleared and also my empty glass of wine. I declined the offer for a refill this time. I listened to music for the remaining flight time. Later I asked for a cup of coffee while the flight attendant was passing through the cabin which was delivered promptly.

The captain gave us an update of the weather and our approach into CLT approximately 25 minutes before we touched down. The crew began to prepare the cabin for our arrival in CLT, collected the items from the services and stored everything. I watched our approach into CLT from my window seat but was sitting on the wrong side and therefore could not see the skyline again.

We touched down at 18:10 which meant we made quite up some time in the air and were now even ahead of schedule. Our designated gate was still blocked, so we had to wait a few minutes before we finally got assigned a new gate, B 7 instead of B 5.

Again, I could leave the plane quite quickly and entered the jetbridge to the terminal and was on my way to the US Airways Club.

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