- Good morning from beautiful San Diego in California.
And today, well we're heading across the USA
on United Airlines in first class on board
an Airbus A320 I believe.
It is super early in the morning.
I have not had any coffee.
So, let's get going to the airport.
It is too early, man.
After a few days in Southern California
it was time to head off again.
I'd had a great time flying around the West Coast
with my friend Alireza.
Make sure you check out my pilot vlogs channel
to see my videos from this part of the world.
I'll pop a link on the screen now.
Lindbergh Field is around a 10 minute drive
from downtown San Diego
and it wasn't long until we arrived at the airport.
Well, we can just say thanks and say thank you Ali
for the last few days here in San Diego
and wherever else we've been,
almost everywhere these last few days.
- Yeah, pretty much.
- Yeah, so time to sort of get out of here now
and leave this man to go and have some peace and quiet
for a bit, so.
- Yeah, got to go actually work.
- Oh no, what's that?
- Nah.
- I don't know what that is.
- Yeah, well you don't know.
- All right, see you later.
- All right, fly safe-
- Thank you man!
I was running tight on time this morning.
So I'm headed straight to the check-in desk to drop my bag.
Hi, how are you?
Can I check my bag, please?
Perfect. Thank you very much.
- Is that you?
- That's me. Yeah, I'm a YouTuber so yeah, I .
I always notice my bag when it comes off .
Thank you so much.
All right, thanks. Have a good day.
Thank you.
TSA was pretty easy this morning
and within a few minutes I was through to our side.
easy, what nice staff here
there all quite friendly as well.
San Diego, it's getting close to departure time
because I'm lazy and got up late.
So It's time to head down to the gate I think.
I was frustrated I hadn't left enough time
to check out the lounge this morning.
So coffee would have to wait until I was on board.
My ride across to Chicago this morning
was this 21 year old Airbus A320
delivered brand new to United in February, 2000.
Thank you.
Good morning how are you? Thank you.
United's first class cabin seats four across
in a two two configuration. It's a pretty comfortable cabin
and was completely full on this Monday morning fight
to Chicago.
All right. Onboard, ready to go.
That's very quick transit.
That was something about 10 minutes
from arriving at the airport,
going through security and getting on the plane.
Brilliant. Straight through walk, walk, walk on the plane.
Hell good. Love it when it works like that.
And now we're on board the United A320 over to Chicago.
I really love San Diego airport.
It's situated right on the Harbor front in San Diego
and gets a good variety of traffic.
The approach over the city is stunning
and reminds me a lot of Kai Tak.
Our flight to Chicago this morning
then took us east out of San Diego to cross over Arizona
and New Mexico before turning left
across Kansas and Missouri.
Flight time today was three hours and 28 minutes,
cruising at 33 and 35,000 feet.
This is all right isn't it?
It's only like a three hour flight
but you get quite an alright snack box actually.
I'll have a look inside it seems to be a few bits.
Certainly better than my last experience
in United first-class.
Where they gave you a muffin and a coffee.
And you get an actual snack box these days.
So that service seems to have improved a little bit
since the last time I flew them anyway.
Some of that will be .
Salami, and crackers,
almonds,
dried apple,
a Toblerone,
and cream cheese and stuff.
That's pretty decent.
Got my coffee as well.
Last time I took United domestic first class
on a similar length flight.
I only got offered a blueberry muffin,
so it's great to see that the food selection
has improved a little over the last few years,
even with COVID.
I have to say the crew on this flight
are incredibly attentive.
They've been bringing around drinks throughout the flight.
They've just brought my little snack bag.
So I'll go through that in a minute.
It's just lovely.
It's really nice.
The service is really good on this one.
I'm not sure where the based,
presumably it's a Chicago based crew.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure if they have a base in San Diego or not.
They're excellent.
Really, really good.
This is the United service that I like.
I've had some not quite as good experiences
with them in the past.
But on this flight is, they're as good as they ever were.
It's brilliant.
United offers a decent wifi service
on their domestic flights.
My wifi pass cost me around 13 pounds
or 18 US dollars for the entire flight.
And I have to say the speeds were pretty decent.
US transcontinental flights
are some of my favorite in the world.
The scenery below is just so rich
and varied and the views can be incredible.
On this flight we flew right over the top
of Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.
So we got Dasani mineral water,
banned of course in the UK.
Check out Tom Scott's video on that.
He talks a lot about why Dasani
aren't, why you can't buy Dasani in the UK, effectively.
There was a massive scandal with them a few years ago.
So I'll pop a link on the screen, there.
So check out his video.
But yeah, anyway, Dasani mineral water.
And we have, we got petite pretzels,
dum, dum, dum, dum, dum
a Stroopwafel. Awesome.
Pretty decent.
I took this flight on the day that Texas
got hit hard by snow storms.
It was incredible to see snow across the desert
of eastern Arizona, New Mexico and northern Texas.
United's first class seat
is pretty comfy for a flight like this.
There's decent leg room, a bit of storage
and even a three pin power plug in the seat.
The only downside is that the entertainment options
all rely on your own device.
There's no seat back entertainment
even on a longer flight like this,
something that Delta do pretty well
in my experience.
We started our approach down into a very cold Chicago.
Lake Michigan was frozen over today.
The first time I've been here in the winter to see that.
My ride over to Chicago this morning
cost me £239.50, or $328 US dollars
which works out at about 14 Pence per mile.
I was actually very impressed by United this morning.
This routes a core route for United and a very busy flight.
Their service was top-notch for a domestic flight.
And in a time when other airlines
are cutting back somewhat on their service,
United are adapting and providing the best they can.
I just wish they would have put a TV in the seat though.
Thank you, bye.
It's been over a year since I've been here
to O'Hare actually. And funnily enough,
last time was in this terminal as well,
with United. That wasn't a bad ride over was it?
In the snow.
It's very cold here though.
O'Hare today seemed busier
than the last time I flew through here
in early March, 2020.
Most of the shops and restaurants are open,
which was pretty handy.
I love this tunnel. Isn't it cool?
Every time I come to Chicago! The plinky plonky tunnel.
I'd like to say a big thanks as always
to my awesome patreons.
You can join them at the link on the screen now
to get early access to my videos my WhatsApp group,
and my weekly live Zoom call.
So welcome then to a freezing cold Chicago O'Hare airports.
It's actually not too bad
compared to some of the places I've been
it's about minus 15 centigrade at the moment.
Quite a few delays and things here.
But aside from that, it's been running pretty well.
Chicago, you know how to handle this weather really well
so that wasn't a bad ride over was it?
With United 90 on the A320 in first class?
I was actually pretty impressed with the service on board.
Certainly a lot better than my previous experiences
with them. So they're do something right at the moment.
The food was all right,
the crew were really friendly as well.
There was San Diego based
and just really friendly and they got us here early
even, even with all this weather.
Pretty decent flight all in all.
Let me know what you thought to United
down in the comments below. In the meantime,
thanks for watching.
Take care, and I'll see you on the next one.
Bye for now.