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Hi All,
It's been a while since being on this side of the forum and it's also been 21 years since visiting London & Paris.
The last time I went was back on August 2005 when I was 12 years old, before middle school and remember flying Virgin Atlantic's Boeing 747-400. We also took the Eurostar train to and from Paris at that time. No pictures like the way we can do it now.
After many years of my mom bugging to go to London & Paris again, and my dad often so finding some excuse to push back and he did push back on coming, my mom and I made it a point to travel ourselves, because she has been very tired of asking my father, who is frankly more interested in Singapore Airlines (No disrespect to anyone here, I'm kidding) + India, meaning anytime we talk about going to Europe, he dodges the topic and talks all about India instead. I love India, but there's nothing wrong with visiting other parts of the world, too.
As the thread title mentions, this time around, we know there is an ongoing war between the US and Iran causing fuel prices to skyrocket. We booked our tickets before the end of March. Initially I was going to choose Virgin Atlantic's Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner over British Airways' Airbus A380 because for Europe, a late afternoon departure is ideal with an arrival during the morning hours. However, I always read the fine print on cancelation policies (JUST IN CASE), but Virgin Atlantic changed up the flight times to a few hours later for their earlier flight and upgraded to an Airbus A350-1000 XWB. Now the Airbus A350 is a marvelous aircraft, but like I've said many times, it can feel quite cramped (Singapore Airlines, and unfortunately later in December, Lufthansa).
After quite some thought when United for months prior to March put on news articles they will be taking delivery of their Elevated Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners (with a special configuration with only 1 section with Economy with the rest being a premium heavy configuration), I figured rather than grappling with the old interior and outdated IFE's (which frankly can disappoint my mom, whereas for myself the Wifi is often sufficient as long as I can track where I am and have some internet), I looked deep into United's Elevated Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and boy the Economy Class seats look like an upgrade and the Dreamliners used are months-old from the time of delivery, so maybe or may not be a new plane smell but for sure a swanky new aircraft.
This is the first time I'm ever flying United internationally. Remember I said 2005? We almost flew either Iceland Air via Reykjavik or United's Boeing 747-400 at the time to London before we took Virgin Atlantic back in the day. Well, I'm flying it this time around.
I know United can sometimes have a bad rap for their food and I have never experienced food on United first time around so it's going to be interesting.
On the flip side besides the new interior that they chosen UA901/900 as one of their flagship routes (UA1/2 to and from SIN and other LHR routes), in the Summer travel season they have 3 flights to choose from. A 1PM flight with a 7:25AM arrival (UA901), a 5PM flight and a 8PM flight. We picked out UA901/900 because the times suit us perfectly for a early afternoon departure from San Francisco and the flights back to San Francisco have an option to arrive around 1:30PM (Even 2PM latest is fine personally) so United works in this regard. So far those flights have actually been on time.
Unfortunately this time around my father is not coming because before that we had a Chicago trip for a religious function where he was a volunteer priest, we came back, he got more tired, his brother visited the US and stayed with us 10 days, but even then hopefully I can take him some other time. At least he will be coming to Italy during Christmas so there's that plus India in October on Singapore Airlines.
According to the United app, they also advertise Starlink Wifi even on their swanky new 787-9 Elevated Dreamliners, but many have reported it's going to be Panasonic. I have no problem with Panasonic but streaming the news like CBS News 24/7 and others is crucial these days (In fact I was on AA to and from ORD a few weeks ago for the 4th of July weekend, they had AT&T wifi which worked well for everything gate-to-gate). I'll still use the Wifi but in any case, man can't Starlink come fast enough and SQ is not making matters any better for ULH flights. Even if no Starlink, streaming options would be appreciated if added to existing Wifi.
The trip report will begin from the next post onwards. It's going to cover more than just United, a lot of pictures from London and Paris.
It's been a while since being on this side of the forum and it's also been 21 years since visiting London & Paris.
The last time I went was back on August 2005 when I was 12 years old, before middle school and remember flying Virgin Atlantic's Boeing 747-400. We also took the Eurostar train to and from Paris at that time. No pictures like the way we can do it now.
After many years of my mom bugging to go to London & Paris again, and my dad often so finding some excuse to push back and he did push back on coming, my mom and I made it a point to travel ourselves, because she has been very tired of asking my father, who is frankly more interested in Singapore Airlines (No disrespect to anyone here, I'm kidding) + India, meaning anytime we talk about going to Europe, he dodges the topic and talks all about India instead. I love India, but there's nothing wrong with visiting other parts of the world, too.
As the thread title mentions, this time around, we know there is an ongoing war between the US and Iran causing fuel prices to skyrocket. We booked our tickets before the end of March. Initially I was going to choose Virgin Atlantic's Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner over British Airways' Airbus A380 because for Europe, a late afternoon departure is ideal with an arrival during the morning hours. However, I always read the fine print on cancelation policies (JUST IN CASE), but Virgin Atlantic changed up the flight times to a few hours later for their earlier flight and upgraded to an Airbus A350-1000 XWB. Now the Airbus A350 is a marvelous aircraft, but like I've said many times, it can feel quite cramped (Singapore Airlines, and unfortunately later in December, Lufthansa).
After quite some thought when United for months prior to March put on news articles they will be taking delivery of their Elevated Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners (with a special configuration with only 1 section with Economy with the rest being a premium heavy configuration), I figured rather than grappling with the old interior and outdated IFE's (which frankly can disappoint my mom, whereas for myself the Wifi is often sufficient as long as I can track where I am and have some internet), I looked deep into United's Elevated Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and boy the Economy Class seats look like an upgrade and the Dreamliners used are months-old from the time of delivery, so maybe or may not be a new plane smell but for sure a swanky new aircraft.
This is the first time I'm ever flying United internationally. Remember I said 2005? We almost flew either Iceland Air via Reykjavik or United's Boeing 747-400 at the time to London before we took Virgin Atlantic back in the day. Well, I'm flying it this time around.
I know United can sometimes have a bad rap for their food and I have never experienced food on United first time around so it's going to be interesting.
On the flip side besides the new interior that they chosen UA901/900 as one of their flagship routes (UA1/2 to and from SIN and other LHR routes), in the Summer travel season they have 3 flights to choose from. A 1PM flight with a 7:25AM arrival (UA901), a 5PM flight and a 8PM flight. We picked out UA901/900 because the times suit us perfectly for a early afternoon departure from San Francisco and the flights back to San Francisco have an option to arrive around 1:30PM (Even 2PM latest is fine personally) so United works in this regard. So far those flights have actually been on time.
Unfortunately this time around my father is not coming because before that we had a Chicago trip for a religious function where he was a volunteer priest, we came back, he got more tired, his brother visited the US and stayed with us 10 days, but even then hopefully I can take him some other time. At least he will be coming to Italy during Christmas so there's that plus India in October on Singapore Airlines.
According to the United app, they also advertise Starlink Wifi even on their swanky new 787-9 Elevated Dreamliners, but many have reported it's going to be Panasonic. I have no problem with Panasonic but streaming the news like CBS News 24/7 and others is crucial these days (In fact I was on AA to and from ORD a few weeks ago for the 4th of July weekend, they had AT&T wifi which worked well for everything gate-to-gate). I'll still use the Wifi but in any case, man can't Starlink come fast enough and SQ is not making matters any better for ULH flights. Even if no Starlink, streaming options would be appreciated if added to existing Wifi.
The trip report will begin from the next post onwards. It's going to cover more than just United, a lot of pictures from London and Paris.
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