Why you shouldn’t fly United Airlines across America.

[Music] hello and welcome to another trip report I am at Newark New Jersey Airport ewr just across the way from New York City this is United's huge hub in the northeast of the United States and today I'm going to be flying with United in their premium service business class all the way across to Los Angeles on the west coast these transcontinental routes are some of the most competitive air routes in the world and all the big three legacy carriers here in the United States throw everything they can at getting as much business and as many bums on seats on these flights as they can especially in the forward cabins like business class so today I'm gonna check out United flying in a 757-200 before I start this video I think it's important to understand that United are an airline in transition one of the reasons I decided to take United on this route is because it had some terrible customer service and PR problems in the previous 12 months which they've committed to resolving and learning from with so many people telling me that United was a bad airline I thought it was prudent to check it out for myself United are the dominant carrier at Newark and I have to say my first impressions of it as a connecting passenger weren't great I'm struggling to think of a more disappointing lounge than the United Club that I visited here it was dark dingy and really outdated one of the problems is that United is refurbishing its United clubs here at Newark and so this one had been left to get a little bit long in the tooth however the food selection for the late morning was perfectly acceptable and I was able to get myself some breakfast without too much difficulty imminent refurbishment or not there's no excuse for broken and missing light bulbs furniture which seems to come from the early 1990s and a generally dark dingy feel to the lounge it just isn't a welcoming place and any refurbishment this Julis lounge can't come soon enough fortunately Newark isn't quite as disappointing throughout there are some pretty nice places to wait if you wait out by the newer wings of the terminal United Airlines had actually introduced a pop-up club here which is a repurposed gate area it was definitely nowhere near as a big as a club I'd been in blit did come with some pretty good runway views not a bad effort considering disappointingly despite being United's front rank product here in the United States you don't get access to their best lounge the Polaris lounge which has had some pretty good reviews after a quick explore of the terminal its back to the gate and we can see our Boeing 757-200 arriving here on its inbound journey from San Francisco it's been a long time since I took a 757 flight and I'm really excited for it two-six it's time to line up and get ready for group 1 boarding which is where your board if you're in business class not feeling terribly loved up with United's so far not had a good experience of them so far today let's just see if they can recover it on board now New Yorkers are not known for their politeness in fact quite the opposite but I did witness something at the gate which was really not on our flight was delayed for about 25 minutes because the cleaners hadn't yet boarded the plane and there was an announcement from the gate staff to that effect however somebody did approach the podium and asked when the plane was going to get underway it's likely this customer didn't hear the announcement or had simply arrived after the announcement was made but the gate staff decided to do something completely unacceptable which was to make a passive-aggressive announcement repeating the announcement and I quote for the benefit of those who weren't listening that is no way to treat a paying customer regardless of whether or not they'd made a mistake anyway that said you could have followed these shenanigans in real time if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram where I live blog all of my trips the next issue for me to navigate was to sort out somebody who had actually started unpacking their things into my seat and that's because United had upgraded this person and given them a duplicate boarding pass with the same seat number as me here is the seat which is of course a lie flat business class seat here on the 757 seating is arranged in a 2+2 formation and have to say I do prefer the narrow bodies on these transcontinental routes I just think that with a smaller cozier cabin you get more attentive service there's definitely no issue at all with legroom on these flights but do note that the Ottoman foot rests on these things are pretty small and you will find it very tight when sleeping another thing I really didn't like about the seat is the socket placement it's right over your shoulder and it's very difficult to plug things in when you're sat down finally the entertainment screen is a pretty good size and of course there is a moving map airshow waiting at my seat our headphones for the in-flight entertainment and of course the transcontinental amenity kit which is provided by Saks Fifth Avenue Saks also provide the bedding onboard this flight which consists of a pillow and blanket which were very very well presented however the pillow was dirty I assume from a previous passenger it's quite difficult to see on this photo so here it is with a bit of enhanced color I sent it back and got a new one with no problem sadly the cabin of this classic 757 aircraft has seen better days [Music] [Music] the climb out from Newark is spectacular and now's a good time to look at the BRIT map for today's flight it's two thousand four hundred and fifty two miles and will be flying at 36,000 feet the flight will take us five hours and 30 minutes today straight after takeoff I visited one of the two bathrooms in the front cabin of the 757 and found the toilet in a completely unacceptable and broken state I have a feeling the crew should have locked this toilet out of service if it was unrepairable at Newark fortunately there is a second toilet for everyone to use which is in a much better state overall here's the menu for today's flight and you don't need me to tell you what you can read on the screen [Music] a quick look at the Saks amenity kit shows that it is a pretty middle-of-the-road affair it does contain everything that you're gonna need on a transcontinental flight but nothing more by this time I was feeling pretty disappointed with United Airlines and when the hotel was served just before lunch I used it not to clean my hands and face but the surface are beating off however that said flying is a tremendous privilege and it was a fantastic day to see things from the air this is Niagara Falls which was over 80 miles away when I took this video our lunch is preceded by a ramekin of nuts a staple on any American carrier and our starter is soon served I have a feeling the salad here is supposed to be a side salad for the Maine and this here is the duck which is the actual starter itself cute salt and pepper shakers though sadly my main course was not going to improve my mood this was the steak and chimichurri sauce and it was absolutely terrible it was like shoe leather it was one of the worst meals I've ever had in business class on any flight the dish was bland and borderline inedible the good news is United serve personalized ice cream sundaes as a dessert on these transcontinental flights and that is pretty impossible to get wrong you'll definitely never hear me complain about ice cream on board any flight this was delicious [Music] an interesting feature I found on the in-flight entertainment was the option to listen in to the air traffic control transmissions coming to and from the aircraft let me know if this is something that you'd be interested in in the comments below with a long day already behind me and a few hours still to run to Los Angeles I decided to get asleep as I said this seat converts into a live flatbed and while it's not the most revolutionary seat in the sky it was perfectly acceptable I was able to get a decent nap and also used the seat for lounging and watching stuff on the in-flight entertainment this is a pretty lengthy domestic flight and with just over a thousand kilometres to go we served a pre landing snack which consists of crisps or chips as the Americans call them and this pathetic two-inch long ham wrap which has no place in any business class cabin anywhere to be honest the main highlight of this flight has been the scenery perfect day for flying and the approach into Los Angeles is reassuring a spectacular [Music] so my conclusions I don't think I need to sum up the fact this flight was very very poor value in my opinion in fact out of all the legacy airlines I've taken I think this ranks somewhere towards the bottom of the value scale the full stretch of my ticket was Atlanta to Newark to Los Angeles and cost me six hundred and twenty pounds that's eight hundred US dollars one way that's really expensive and United really fail to deliver this time I know that a lot of people who watch this channel will be regular users and frequent fliers of United Airlines so if you've had different experiences in the past or you can shed any more light on why my experience might have been a bad one please do leave your comments below I love reading all of them and I'll try to get back to as many questions as I can I'll close by saying I was particularly disappointed because United are an airline in transition and having had so many setbacks in 2017 and 2018 a really thought that have pulled it out of the bag here on this transcontinental flight that said next year I have booked to go from San Francisco back to Newark on United's brand new 787 10 which enters service at the beginning of next year this will also feature brand new Polaris style seating and I really hope the United would deem themselves when I take the next year make sure you subscribe to cast a trip report when it comes out [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Wingin’ It! Paul Lucas

Views: 837,808

Rating: 4.4407086 out of 5

Keywords: united airlines, united, ps, premium service, ewr, lax, united club, bad review, review, trip, report, tripreport, trip report, pauls trip reports, flight review, business class, first class, transcon, transcontinental, newark, los angeles, united airlines rant, rant, safety video, united airlines drags man off plane video, meme

Id: 1Z1EHf8nXw8

Length: 12min 13sec (733 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 28 2018