I did the PDX->ORD equivalent flight last night. A319, on time, etc. etc. I too noticed United has changes a few 'procedures' recently. Movies and cabin service (drinks) on red-eyes are new. "Use= the bathroom in your ticketed cabin" reminders. Copious amounts of water service (7 times in a 1.5hr ORD-ATL flight. AC = barely does 2 in a 2 hour service, in J class!) I'll give United credit for "staying the course." I've noticed the pilots, attendants and station crews being increasingl= y pleasant and eager over the last few months. United is running the key routes, putting in the planes they need, simplif= ying policies and procedures. I'd almost say that United, from an external point of view, is becoming an operationally excellent business. They simply = have a labor cost structure that is out of whack, and a (still) severely depressed customer base. My opinion, mileage may vary. Matthew Original Message: ----------------- From: Bahadir Acuner bahadiracuner@yahoo.com Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 09:57:59 -0700 To: AIRLINE@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU Subject: Trip Report : SEA-ORD-CMH I decided to take the weekend off and see my gf who is trying to get out of OSU :) Since she was sick she decided to hold on to her own ticket at AWA and I did a last minute purchase at UAL.com the day before the trip. May 9 UA # 562 SEA --> ORD 11:30 pm 5:03 am A319 N853UA Ch. 9 ON all the way I purchased the ticket the day before the departure at UAL.com and all the back row seats were available. Being soo smart, I decided to take the last row and have all A-B-C seats to myself. Arrived to the airport about 80 mins before the departure time and did a smooth check in with no lines at all. The new procedure in SEA right now is to get your checked luggage and give it to a guy at the sophisticated X ray machine. Only after that they put the destination tags on them. There was a nice warning sign about the damage that the machine can do to the film and camera equipment. So I ended up taking the camera with me. It turns out the Thursday night red-eyes are pretty popular and all those rows were completely full. The guy at 21A was complaining big time since he purchased the ticket 4 hrs before departure (read pay $$$$$) and got the last row. Despite being high and mighty in the Mileage Plus levels I wasn't able to get a Econ Plus seating. After settling in 21C the guy at 21A and I were hoping that we wouldn't get anyone in the middle. Murphy's law kicked in and we had a "large" guy sitting in the middle. 3 and half hours of squeezing was not fun. The only thing that made my life much easier was the ANR headset that I brought with me. The noise canceling headset that I use for my flight instructing job helped me a lot. Even though I looked like a dork with all those cords etc. it reduced the noise level tremendously. Different from previous red-eyes was the fact that they showed a movie on this one. They even had a pretzels and soda service. Half of the people were asleep and I believe it wasn't the perfect place to see "A Beautiful Mind". We landed on 27L with winds from 250 at 13 knots. Taxied off to gate C3 and deplaned with an on time arrival. May 10 UA# 1118 ORD --> CMH 6:45 am 8:53 am B737-300 N343UA Seat 5F Ch.9 OFF We pushed back at 6:43 am for a departure on Runway 32L at the T10 intersection. As soon as we had wheels up I ended up sleeping and my eyes didn't open until we were north-northeast of Columbus international. Since it's been two years since I flew to that region of the country (that time in a C172RG) I forgot how flat the land is. :) We flew north of KOSU and did a nice right base entry to runway 28R. Taxied to the only gate that is used by United, B11. I noticed that there was a lot of construction going on at the north side of the terminal. The entire tarmac was getting resurfaced. Another interesting point was the new building of NetJets at the north side of Rwy 28R. They were just putting the signs in the building and all those Citation Jets sitting before it looked pretty nice. And for Ray... KSEA : Seattle/Tacoma International, WA KORD : Chicago O'Hare, IL KCMH : Port Columbus International, OH KOSU : Ohio State University Airport, OH -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .