I typically don’t write about my day to day domestic travel, unless something interesting happens. Yesterday, for example, I had great service on a short flight to Denver so I was happy to write a few words about it. I was looking forward to my IAD-DEN flight in First Class today, but it ended up being a drag.
To get things started, I was never offered a pre-departure beverage. I was not one of the first to board, but I was in my seat for a solid 20 minutes before they closed the cabin door. The lazy flight attendants never came to see if I wanted a drink – they skipped about half the cabin, actually.
DEN-IAD is on the longer end of domestic flights, and considering that I had warm nuts yesterday on SFO-DEN, I somewhat expected them today on DEN-IAD. Nope! Denied! GRRRRRRRRRR.
When I asked the flight attendant if there were any nuts on board, I was given an abrupt “No.” No apology or charm. I can get nuts / pretzels on a Southwest cattle car, but if I’m in UA First Class, I might not have anything to accompany my beverage. I know that UA doesn’t always stock hot nuts, but they usually have some type of goodie basket if they don’t have the nuts.
And this was not the fault of United, but the flight was turbulent almost the ENTIRE time. It wasn’t the roughest turbulence in the world, but it was pretty much constant for a few hours. That was annoying.
For the meal, there were no hot options, which I thought was odd. Yesterday on my SFO-DEN flight there were hot meals. I had the choice of a cold chicken wrap or a cold chicken salad. I got a salad yesterday so I went with the wrap today. It came with chili. I was looking forward to the chili, and I wanted some bread to go with it for dipping. Then it occurred to me. I had a sealed bag of breadsticks on my tray. Yesterday I had the same sealed bag of breadsticks. While I thought the breadsticks yesterday were specific to my salad, now I’m wondering… has UA replaced bread with breadsticks? I REALLY hope not – it was a nice touch when they came down the aisle with the bread basket.
Yesterday on my mid-day flight, the cookie was brought out after the main meal. Today they decided to bring the “warm” cookie out right with the food. Of course, after eating my meal, the cookie wasn’t warm anymore.
Even when the seatbelt sign was off, the flight attendants were not in much of a rush to come by and clear plates. Mine was there for a long time.
Oh – and the first class bathroom was “broken” for half the flight. The FA turned me away from it, but it magically fixed itself toward the end of the flight. So while there was no single terrible thing abou this flight, it was just the overall collection of mediocrity and laziness that really bummed me out.
