Review of United flight from Chicago to Washington in Economy

Friends reunion in chicago

This is the return trip of my quick weekend in Chicago.  As with my previous flight, my upgrade did not clear.  I was No. 6 on the upgrade list this time around (the top two cleared).

chicago o'hare international airport

Because I was accompanying a friend who was flying on American, I first went to T3 with her.  T3, like other AA terminals did not have CLEAR, but Precheck by itself was reasonably fast.  The terminal was decked out in the Christmas spirit already.

The WiFi in the terminal itself was reasonably fast.

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It was a bit of walking (somewhere around 10-15 minutes) from the end of T3 to my gate in T2.

My flight home was on N78524, a 13-years old Boeing 737-800.  Boarding began promptly at 5:14pm CT.

UA has the same 3-3 arrangement across its 737s.

I was in 11A, the same seat as the previous flight, with the missing window.  Luckily, we had one of these older 737s again with IFE screens.

The controls for the IFE screens can be found in the armrest.  I imagine that once the retrofits are complete, all the IFE screens will be touchscreen, but I feel bad for the middle seat currently as either window or aisle seat passenger (depending on where you sit) will have to encroach in your space to control their IFE.

Economy Plus offers plenty of leg room for an average guy like me.

We pushed back at 5:52pm (3 minutes early) and took off at 6:11pm.

Service began 14 minutes after takeoff with just water.  I'm not sure if I dozed off at some point or something, but there was no other service?  I was under the impression there should have been at least snacks on this flight.

Throughout the flight, for whatever reason, there was no power coming through the outlet.  Luckily I charged my devices at the gate.

Around 8:08pm ET the captain announced the seat belt sign would be turned on for the rest of the flight due to turbulence.

We landed at 8:45pm ET and was at our gate 3 minutes later, slightly before the scheduled arrival.

I landed at DCA to a complete mess on the ground as storms in the area had caused significant delays and a bottleneck.  Ubers/Lyfts were outrageously expensive (and also a 10+ minute wait).  I simply got in the taxi line, which took about 15 minutes before I got a taxi.  It was still drizzling so I did not want to bother with the Metro.  Pro tip for DCA: if you're going to DC, more often than not it's faster to grab a taxi and also cheaper.  It's consistently around $15-16 + tip to get home where I live near downtown.  Rideshares often charge $20+, especially when arriving in the evening.