United Airlines First Class B757 San Francisco to Orlando
United Airlines 1249
San Francisco (SFO) – Orlando (MCO)
Boeing 757-300
19 February 2015
Boarding was done a couple of minutes behind schedule at gate 66, so I literally had to come back to the gate next to the gate that I arrived at. The flight was operated by a Boeing 757-300 which features in-seat power and DirecTV, however this specific aircraft didn’t have WiFi. Since I booked the flight two days before, I only had once seat to choose, 6F. I didn’t realise that the back row doesn’t recline as much due to the partition and lavatory behind! On an A320 there is a partition, but the seats still recline normally. I guess I should’ve checked SeatGuru.com, but it isn’t like I had any choice.
I boarded with about half of First Class meanwhile the rest of the people showed up at random times throughout the boarding process.
It was a warm day in San Francisco with the usual low clouds which impact operations after 09:00, our scheduled departure was 09:05 and thankfully we still departed on time.
One of the baggage/cargo doors is above 5F and therefore I had a nice view at all of the baggage being thrown handled into the plane.
The pre-departure beverages were handed out once everyone in First Class was seated since the FAs kept running back to Economy and helping with passengers who needed assistance.
I quickly turned on the Airshow once I took my seat to avoid all of the commercials. Later I decided to watch some movies since I didn’t have much to do without WiFi.
The view was breathtaking once we got out of San Francisco. You gotta love SFO and their ‘low ceilings’.
After we left the clouds behind and climbed to 11k metres, we were presented with a beautiful view of mountains.
The lead FA took drink and breakfast orders once we reached our cruising altitude.
Being in the last row, I got the worst breakfast since nothing else was left. From what I could hear, they had cereal, French toast, sausages, and then scrambled eggs. The only choice left was the scrambled eggs and I decided to pass, then the FA offered me a Fruit plate with yogurt and a cinnamon roll which I happily ate.
Breakfast was done at a very slow pace, we were approaching Houston by the time everything had been cleared.
Shortly before landing, we were all offered a chocolate chip cookie.
As usual the view and approach into Florida was amazing and I spent the remaining 30 minutes of the flight just gazing outside.
We were on the ground about ten minutes behind schedule and pulled into gate 42, where I disembarked for ~20 minutes and would board the same aircraft back to San Francisco.
