Review of United flight from Washington to Newark in Economy

New Years eve trip to columbus

I had to be in Columbus on New Years Eve (actually the day before as well) for an event with friends. Naturally, that meant I got struck with an Omicron cancellation on United. Originally, I was booked with a nice 2:35pm departure from ROA-IAD-CMH. However, the IAD-CMH leg was cancelled and I got stuck with an auto-rebooked itinerary adding a stop through Newark that got me in town after 10pm. I immediately called the 1K line to try to find something that could get me in earlier. Initially, there were no alternatives that were bookable, but after trying to piecemeal something together–the agent managed cobble together an itinerary that was ROA-IAD-ORD-CMH with a 3-hour layover at O'Hare (starting at 8am). Not ideal, but it was the best we could do at the time. Carol (the very dedicated and patient phone agent) suggested I keep an eye on what other flights open up that evening because things were changing so rapidly. Great advice as eventually I was able to find an itinerary through EWR instead of ORD that got me into Columbus 1.5 hours earlier.

It's during IRROPS like these that I am really thankful for airline status and the perks that it comes with. I don't want to think about how long it would have taken for me to get through the phone line or whether the agents would have been fine with me calling repeatedly to change my rebooking more than once.

air france lounge (IAD)

After deplaning from my flight from Roanoke, I headed to the Air France lounge in A. Because the train at Dulles runs through A and C, it's a more convenient lounge to use for folks departing from C (my gate was C17) than either the Lufthansa or Turkish lounge. Christmas decorations were still up in the lounge. I was quickly checked in by the agent.

The Air France Lounge was more packed than I've ever remembered it being when I was there (though I usually visited in the early afternoon before). It comprises of one main room with a small adjacent room on each side.

I really like the decor of this lounge: great lounge chair set ups by the window overlooking the tarmac (and plenty of outlets everywhere).

There is a circular table area in the middle.

At the end there is a very small separate room–I've always assumed that it becomes the La Premiere area when the lounge becomes exclusive to Air France's evening departure.

What was new to me was that the front desk agent pointed out a room right behind him that I never noticed before for some reason. It is found on the other end of the lounge.

I had never been in this room before in any of my previous visits after the lounge was refurbished in early 2019. It's a great sitting area with a long table in the middle. I'm guessing this becomes the business class dining area in the evening for the Air France flight.

The breakfast buffet was a little lackluster, but I was glad that at least hot breakfast returned. The sweet potato fries weren't bad, just a little lukewarm. I also grabbed a croissant and a cappuccino from the coffee machine. I believe around 10:00am they begin to transition the buffet to lunch by adding sandwiches and the like. 

I stopped by the bar after eating. It's quite an elegant bar. To my surprise, I found that Taittinger NV was the champagne available. This is good champagne for a Priority Pass lounge! I was originally going to get a mimosa, but not going to waste a glass of Taittinger.

Naturally, I forgot to take a picture of the flute until after I drank quite a bit of it. Trust me when I say it was a generous pour.

I left around 10:05am and caught the train to Terminal C. Overall, the journey took a little more than 10 minutes.

UA2491

My ride to EWR was on N890UA, a 15-years old Airbus A319.

Boarding began on time at 10:25am.

United's A319 has 3 rows of domestic first class in a 2-2 configuration, 6 rows of Economy Plus in a 3-3 configuration, and 13 rows of normal economy in a 3-3 configuration. Alas, if we only had an A320 on this flight, I would have cleared my upgrade despite switching to this flight late the previous evening. In reality, I was just happy to be able to get a seat on this flight as it was originally sold out in economy. There were quite a few crew members deadheading on this flight. 

I was seated in 8F, the starboard window seat in the second row of Economy Plus. You can tell that the cabin has been refreshed since I last flew an United A319 more than two years ago–it's possible that United has finished its reconfiguration of these cabins by adding the extra row of first class on all of its A319s (63 currently in service according to Planespotter, with 36 grounded).

These are fairly standard extra-legroom economy seats: 35 inches of pitch (trash in the image is mine). There are two outlets between the seats, in front. Wifi is available for streaming and purchase (I didn't check prices). A fairly standard overhead panel with air nozzles and reading lights sits overhead.

We pushed back at 10:57am (3 minutes early) and after a quick taxi took off at 11:07am.

A few minutes after takeoff the captain announced we had reached our cruising altitude of 17,000 feet. The purser came on afterwards to explain that because of the short duration of the flight, there will only be service for water–a little surprising since the sole FA on my ROA-IAD flight (even shorter) was able to come around with a snack basket.

The brief service began 9 minutes after takeoff. FAs came to collect trash 5 minutes later (making several more trips throughout). When the captain announced our descent at 11:28am, another FA came through for last-minute waters for anyone who wanted it.

Overall, the flight was very uneventful–there's not much service on these flights. We touched down at 11:44am. 8 minutes later, we were at Gate C17.