Friday 29th July 2016
After saying farewell to our ANA crew we headed to immigration. About 10 steps out of the jet bridge I realized I was still wearing my cardigan from onboard. No one stopped me & there was plenty of staff to do so. Guess it’s mine now! Immigration lines were long but Global Entry was empty. I had problems figuring out how to use it since I had never done it before so the CBP guy came over and gave me a hand. Once u figured out what go do it was easy and helped a lot.
Global Entry didn’t help all that much as we were quickly through immigration but stuck waiting for bags. It wasn’t a huge long wait and before we knew it was off to customs (which was a non event as usual). After customized headed to baggage recheck where after waiting in line for a significant amount of time we were able to check our third bag in (since the other two were good to go). The walk to T3 was a few seconds & waiting at pre check was non existent.
Stopped by the Centurion Lounge for a sticky beak before heading to the United Club. Unfortunately the club had no empty seats so we went to the gate (which changed again) to wait it out.
United Airlines – UA424
San Francisco to Seattle Tacoma
1440-1650
Airbus A320 (N855UA)
First Class – Seat 2A
Boarding: 1405 (Gate 62)
Push Back: 1431
Take off Roll: 1450 (Runway 01R)
Top of Descent: 1600
Touch Down: 1625 (Runway 34L)
Shut Down: 1632 (Gate A8)
Pre boards were called and then Group 1 which was us. However due to the gate lice we had to push our way to the gate. Pretty sure my camera bag smacked someone blocking the line. That will learn them! Once onboard we found our seat (old worn out legacy United First Class) and waited as the cabin filled up.
Once things died down a little we were offered a drink of choice for our PDB. I just had a water because I was really feeling tired all of a sudden. We pushed back early and had a fairly quick taxi to the gate. I know this because of the timing, not that I saw much of it as I fell asleep twice.
Takeoff roll had us the winner as the UA 320 next to us never took off and most of the climb to cruise I was on and off asleep. Ugh! Once we were at height and the seat belt sign was off I hit the can and informed the crew of my broken seat…. Fun!
Drinks and the snack basket was offered and I took a cookie, banana & a fig bar to tide me over till dinner. I had spent most of the last 48 hrs eating so food was not that high on my list of important things to do. Coffee on the other hand was so I made sure to have as much as I could.
Pretty soon we were on descent to Seattle as we passed over Oregon. The captain came on and told us we were just to the south of Portland (and we were) and we began a fairly on and off descent. We must have done some slow downs as well because we started doing some S Turns just around Olympia. When we left SFO destination winds should have had us landing South Flow however we started a North Flow approach. We were wheels down over Tacoma and started to descend down over Federal Way (passed over Heidi’s parents house) and Des Moines. We touched down on the far left runway (the 3rd runway) and spent a good 5 or 6 minutes taxiing over to the terminal side. We also had to taxi over to the A concourse which added more time.
After pulling into the gate, we had to wait as they “have a problem with the jetbridge so they are getting someone to come look at it” (or so they said). What I really think is that whoever was working it didn’t know what they were doing and screwed things up. We got off after only a 2 or 3 minute wait. Not bad at all considering. As we were getting off I got a text update from United saying that the bags made an earlier flight so they were already here and to go see a staff member. Made a brief stop at work, and then down to baggage claim. Our bags were in storage and they had to pull them out so we could go. Even with that hassle we still made a 5pm cut off for Lyft’s half price deal and made it home shortly after! Well and truly done!