United Airlines Airline Review

No problem finding my seat. 1B stared me in the face the moment I boarded. All 16 seats in the first class cabin were full. They usually are these days as carriers tightly control seating capacity. Pretty typical seat for domestic first class: leather, limited recline, nice lumbar support and fitted with all-important powerports for laptops. Since this is a bulkhead seat there are no footrests. That said, you can shed your shoes and prop them up discreetly on the carpeted wall in front of you. This -800 is among the 27 percent of United's 737s that the company has outfitted with Wi-Fi. The rest of the seven-three fleet is set to be so rigged by July 2015. Even though Atlanta's not on the East Coast per se, the scheduled 5:16 minute, trip qualifies in this reporter's mind as a true transcontinental flight. An amenity kit would have been a nice touch.

Upon boarding I took off my coat, smiled at the flight attendant, handed it to her for hanging up and said, "Thank you." That failed to spark reciprocal "You're welcome" or a smile. The takeoff roll for the almost fully-loaded 737-800 took 40 seconds. The little kid in me continues to be amazed at the magic of machines taking flight. The day I take this all for granted it's time to retire.

Smiles broke out among the cabin crew as breakfast was served. Up front that meant a choice of cereal or a full American breakfast replete with scrambled eggs, sausage and hash-brown potatoes. I chose the latter. I had a long day ahead and my body would need the protein. After a layover at SFO I was bound for Chengdu, in the far western reaches of China. As the meal service rolled on, the sky roiled up a bit. The flight attendants deftly balanced trays of food. The captain came on the PA (a re-assuring gesture) and explained that air traffic control was reporting mild to moderate turbulence at "all altitudes." He was doing what he could to smooth things out.

The in-flight video fare wasn't bad: some 100 channels of DIRECTV. Movies, sports, news, and such are all there - even though the bulkhead screen is a bit smallish. In United First, there's no change for DIRECTV. In United Economy and Economy Plus there is. Inveterate weather-watcher that I am, I switched between The Weather Channel and the in-flight moving map. The latter doesn't display en route weather, but The Weather Channel does. Going back and forth, I got a good idea of what lay ahead. This was springtime in the American south and the heavens were predictably unsettled. When the radar cleared, about the time we crossed the Colorado border, I turned off the video and pulled out my own decidedly non-digital hardbound entertainment, the third part of a biography of Winston Churchill.

The best flight is an uneventful flight. Despite intermittent light to moderate choppy air, Flight 1275 was precisely that. This AirlineRatings author was the guest of United Airlines.