Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Woke up super early to catch the flight to San Francisco. Checked our bags through to Shanghai, cleared US immigration, bought the wake-up Starbucks latte, grabbed a Tim Horton’s breakfast sausage english muffin (with hashbrowns!) and then headed for the departure gate. Flight was set to leave on time but as the plane pulled back there was an electrical fault. We headed back to the ramp and the maintenance guys got to work. Took them an hour and then we were good to go. Arrived in San Fran at about 9.00 am with about four hours to wait. We walked the shopping concourse and then headed for the airline lounge to fire up our laptops and get connected. Guess today ends at lunchtime and tomorrow starts in the evening. Will have to see where all this time goes while we are in the air.
The flight is sure long. Thirteen hours. Have to say that the service in United’s business class this time is way behind what it was when we flew to Hong Kong last year. I would give it a three out of ten. There is so much low hanging fruit here on the service side that could easily get this up to an eight out of ten. Watched a few movies, read a bit and tried to sleep - somehow managed to get through the half day of flying time. Even though Catherine successfully slept through most of the flight, I still can’t really account for the loss of a whole day!
Woke up super early to catch the flight to San Francisco. Checked our bags through to Shanghai, cleared US immigration, bought the wake-up Starbucks latte, grabbed a Tim Horton’s breakfast sausage english muffin (with hashbrowns!) and then headed for the departure gate. Flight was set to leave on time but as the plane pulled back there was an electrical fault. We headed back to the ramp and the maintenance guys got to work. Took them an hour and then we were good to go. Arrived in San Fran at about 9.00 am with about four hours to wait. We walked the shopping concourse and then headed for the airline lounge to fire up our laptops and get connected. Guess today ends at lunchtime and tomorrow starts in the evening. Will have to see where all this time goes while we are in the air.
The flight is sure long. Thirteen hours. Have to say that the service in United’s business class this time is way behind what it was when we flew to Hong Kong last year. I would give it a three out of ten. There is so much low hanging fruit here on the service side that could easily get this up to an eight out of ten. Watched a few movies, read a bit and tried to sleep - somehow managed to get through the half day of flying time. Even though Catherine successfully slept through most of the flight, I still can’t really account for the loss of a whole day!