UA2662 (IAH-MCO) Economy class. Booked with 11,800 Velocity points plus A$15.50.
Being VA Platinum gave me Group 1 boarding, but it had not given me priority seating. The only free (ie. not requiring extra payment) seats on the 737-900 were up the back, so I’d allocated myself 29A. I boarded to find that almost every other Group 1 boarder was up the front, either in the 5 rows of First class or the priority Economy seats, and all the overhead lockers there were already full. I meandered up the back, placed my carry-on in the empty locker immediately above my seat, and walked to the very back of the plane to get a photo (this was my first flight ever on a 737-900). As you can see, I was only the third person in non-priority seating, even though I'd been at the very back of the Group 1 boarding queue.
After I took the above photo, I heard a strict voice behind me: “Sir, photography is not permitted on this flight”. I turned to see a member of the cabin crew grinning cheekily. “Only joking!” She said. We then had a pleasant chat about how this was my first time on a 737-900 as we don’t have them in Australia. Her colleague then said, “And this isn’t anywhere near our best plane” and proudly went through some of the other planes in the United fleet.
I was very impressed with the United cabin crew on this flight — and I told them so towards the end of the flight.
As the plane filled up, I became very grateful that they’d let me on with the Group 1 passengers. Every single seat was taken, and once the plane was about three-quarters full, the crew announced that everyone boarding with full-size carry on would need to have it gate-checked.
The flight only finished boarding at our scheduled departure time.
About 10 minutes later, the Captain announced that the delay was due to the fact that the plane was “very heavy” and that the engineers were checking whether the plane’s weight was right. He announced that they would be done within 5 or 10 minutes. I have never encountered a flight delay due to the weight of the plane before! Maybe the larger 737-900s have less weight to play with because of their size? Better safe than sorry, I suppose.
About 20 minutes later the Captain announced once again that they were still having weight issues and that he’d let us know when things changed. At that point I expected the next step would be asking for volunteers to disembark, but we pushed back a few minutes later without any announcement.
A few views of the tarmac… (it felt a little strange being behind the wing for a change!)
There were a hundred channels of TV and entertainment. I had the flight path map up for most of the flight, but before we departed I was very glad to see that this January 6 was going a lot more smoothly than 4 years ago…
Our ascent…
Passing from Texas into Louisiana:
Unfortunately it started clouding over just as we were flying by New Orleans.
As we were about 30 minutes out from Orlando, the captain suddenly announced that we were about to hit turbulence, and he instructed all cabin crew to be seated.
But we landed without incident.
The only other thing that struck me about this flight was the fact that as we boarded all the window shades were down, and almost every passenger kept them down for the whole flight (including takeoff and landing). As we were disembarking, the cabin crew announced “For the comfort of the passengers on the next flight, please ensure that your window shade is down before you disembark.”
Definitely different!
