IAD to BRU – The United Experience (Standard Economy Class)

9 April 2008 – My flight to Brussels was on a B777-200, which is pretty much the standard airplane for trans Atlantic services for most airlines.  I have flown on the 777 across the Atlantic on BA, UAL and Air France.  Each offers an economy traveler a difference experience.

This is my second time using United to cross the Pond.  The first time was to London and UAL did not offer Economy Plus, the entire economy section was standard economy.  On my flight to Brussels, the first half of Economy is Economy Plus, which I will get to experience upon my flight back to Washington in a few days time. My first impression of Economy as offered by UAL, well, was that they are a little behind their European competitors.  The seating is pretty standard for international economy, although there are no foot rests, which I thought was a little odd. Both AF and BA offer foot rests and it is a small tough touch, but one that does help with getting one in to a comfy position to get some sleep.

The next thing I noticed was the entertainment system.  You do have individual screens and controls, but they are fixed.  So, if someone reclines their seat, there is no way to adjust your screen for better viewing.   Instead, you have to fiddle with the contrast controls to reconfigure the colours to match the new viewing angle of the LCD screen.

As I mentioned before, the controls for the entertainment system are fixed to the arm of one seat.  Not bad, but if you have a passgenger next to you who say, over fills their seat or claims you arm rest as their own, you have to navigate under their arm to adjust the volume or change the channel.  It is a good thing that with this set up, UAL is not offering games on their entertainment, which BA and AF do offer on their B777′s.

I must admit, not having a collection of games on UAL’s flight entertainment system is getting behind the times.  On my flights on BA and AF, the games actually do a really good job of keeping children on a long trans atlantic flight entertained and best of all….. QUIET. Granted, AF and BA do have systems with a control that you eject from the arm rest so as not to annoy your neighbor on a flight.

{mosimage} That is not to say that UAL’s entertainment system is not all bad.  Where it lacks in games, UAL has made up for in content.  UAL uses XM radio to provide 18 channels of music and entertainment.  For me, this was a real find as on Ch. 22 I found a station from XM radio that fit my music tastes perfectly, BMP.  Being a music lover  of techno and trance music, finding BMP was, to put down to one word, amazing.

And there is one other channel that fit can entertain and educate at the same time, Channel 9, the monitoring of the aircrafts cockpit radio.  You get to listen in to all that is going on in the airspace that the airplane is traveling through and hear the transmissions between your flight and the various control centers in route.  For me, as a pilot and long time aviation buff, this is a gold mine.  And get this, one exercise or if with children, you can do is make in to a game by monitoring and writing down the transitions between just your flight and the control center.  See if you can accurately capture the frequency changes, navigation read backs, etc.   United is the only airline I know of that offers passengers the ability to monitor the cockpit radio.

As for seating room, well I do like how UAL has got a 2 x 5 x 2 seating arrangement in the economy cabin of their 777.  AF uses a 3 x 4 x 3 arrangement and I think BA uses a 2 x 5 x 2 seating arrangement as well. If you have a window seat on a UAL flight, you only have to squeeze by one passenger and you feel less hemmed in when next to the window.   As for legroom, well, I only stand 5′ 6″, so for me, I can get comfortable in standard economy.  But, I could see anyone with long legs begging for an aisle seat to be able to have enough leg room to stretch out.

Other wise, I would say it is just the standard trans Atlantic experience in economy.