Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Good News: United back on time (for the most part)

United says it's an 'on time' airline again. Kiah Collier, Chron.com

United Airlines on Monday touted a return to solid on-time performance.
The Chicago-based carrier has experienced a decline in recent months in such measures of operational performance as the percentage of planes arriving on time. Customer complaints have spiked.
But United, which had not achieved its normal on-time goal of 80 percent since April, on Monday announced that 82 percent of domestic flights in September arrived on schedule.

My real-life experience has noticed things getting better as well.  Our trip to Puerto Rico did have a small delay, but that was due to weather as the flight took off from it's destination (IAH) to the island and couldn't be helped.  From a hard product stand point United did themselves proud on this trip.  I even had good food in domestic BusinessFirst on the flight back (the flight over, not so much).  I don't have it pictured but the cheese ravioli with spicy tomato sauce catered out of San Juan was excellent.  Probably the best United dish I've eaten to date.

Unfortunately the same can't be said for the gummy, undercooked in the middle-overcooked on the edges, chicken pocket that I was subjected to on the way over.  It tasted like bread paste with dry chicken and bland tomato sauce.  The cheese was also very un-cheezy in a plastic tasting kind of way.

The flights themselves were great however, the BusinessFirst seats felt newly padded, the In-Flight Entertainment actually worked, and the Flight Attendants were smiling and helpful.  Overall a great flight.  Nice to see that the crew is being awarded with bonuses.  Well deserved.

Finally, the Puerto Rico trip marked a first in flying for me personally.  This was my first trip down to the Caribbean, so I've never seen a plane with the Liat livery.  I'm sure that, for long time travellers, this is something that's old hat, but whenever I see something for the first time it's still a little exciting.  So, without further ado, the Liat plane:

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