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ameya · Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 6:23 am Post subject: Seven Fifty Seven to Chicago

I reached Irvine,CA last Saturday after a long flight, the TR for which is already there. From the John Wayne Airport(SNA), the hotel shuttle whisked me to the hotel which was to be my home for the next week or so.

SNA, I observed has over 300 private planes of all sizes & types.
More about the airport can be found here
John Wayne Wiki Page

One of my juniors from the B-School stays few hours from Irvine, and came on Sunday around lunch, so I got introduced to the area thru her & her husband. We went to a Thai restaurant for lunch that day and since then started my struggle to finish an American meal. I finally managed that on day 4, when I smartly ordered the smallest meal available during lunch. American portions are large.

Thanks to my colleague who took a car here, I could see Lagoona Beach, Dana Point harbor and the coastal California highway between Monday & Tuesday. He headed back on Wednesday morning and I then explored the town, mostly on foot, going to wendys, taco bell, Wetzel pretzel and ensuring I have Sam Adams and Millers.

20130923_171408 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20130923_161106 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20130927_140941 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr
Any guesses why I clicked the above ?

20130927_150031 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr
Irvine Spectrum

20130927_185856 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

Work came to an end on Friday and I took some time off to visit the Irvine Spectrum, only mall in Orange County. Nothing much to take back, I am bored of the I love where ever T-shirts anyways, so I came back to hotel, enjoyed a complimentary glass of wine and finished some pending work.

While I was here, I met a cab driver, by the name Peter, who in the third day told me that he is not peter but ahmed and from afganistan !

Friday morning I used to business center at the hotel to block the seat & take printout. 39A was blocked by Nimish for me, when he suddenly spotted a window seat sometime two weeks ago. The Y+ section was completely open but not available. As nimish told on Gtalk that they would not give an upgrade to Y+ if the flight is not fully booked and we found out almost all classes were open for booking, thus indicating a fairly empty flight and no change of a Y+. My fears about cancellation or downgrade because of low load (Always happens when you have to try a new type) were laughed off by Nimish as he said this aint SG, this is UA.

I asked the hotel for a cab early in the morning, and I packed my bags and slept. The cab was there right at 5:00AM. The boarding card mentioned that boarding would start at 6:05 for the 06:50 dep – Non Stop to Chicago.

I reached the airport at 5:20 and there was a lot of crowd outside the UA gates. UA/DL/AA all have early morning flights out of SNA.

SNA, as I am told has restricted hours and one cannot take off before 0700hrs. There are a lot of departures at 0645 hrs, I hope Indian aviation learns something from this.

There was a small line at the UA check in desks. The machines were very slow this morning and I managed to check in, change my seat to 23A, deposit baggage and proceed for security. The TSA have their own sweet procedure and things were moving slowly.

Finally done after a long time, I grabbed a quick bite at McDonalds and strolled around seeing the planes at the gate in morning darkness. It’s a nice small airport.

As the clock struck 0605hrs, boarding was announced. I have probably never seen it this on time anywhere else. I have seen IndiGo start late boarding and push back early but never this !

None the less, Zone 1, followed by Zone 3 and I was in Zone 3. Settled in my seat – 23A and took some snaps

John Wayne snaps

20130928_054011 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20130928_055137 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20130928_053953 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr
Such a small airport - so many flights !

Distance between LAX & SNA is less than BOM-PNQ distance

I had done some study the night before about night parkings, which aircraft I would get and so on. However, the night parked aircraft at SNA far exceeded my estimations.

The Seven Fifty Seven is different, much roomier than the thirty sevens, no WL on this one and no PTVs as well. The seats were pretty OK, three different zones in the plane demarcated by three different seat colors.
We pushed back on time and awaited a lot of traffic before us to take off, which included some other 757s, 737s, 320s all of AA,DL,UA. Two Alaska and one frontier and few southwest were parked but they were not yet ready for departures.

It was a nice powerful takeoff followed by a very steep climb and a few turns later we reached our cruising altitude – FL 390

The breakfast service started – BoB and immediately behind it was the drinks service. I opted for tea and some water.

On my BOM-FRA leg, when the tea/coffee service began, the FA came and asked what we would have and the desi next to me said Beer. The FA said this was a tea coffee service, but the desi still was adamant on beer !
Back to this flight, we overflew the Grand Canyon & later some snow clad mountain range

Overall an uneventful flight. Thankfully seat 23B was blocked. The FA also announced that an upgrade to Y+ was possible and it would cost 88USD, and later revised it to 79USD. Nobody opted for it. There still were about 12 pax in Y+ and equal number in J.

20130928_101024 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

Was an exceptionally long flight for me and I clicked pics, tried playing games on the laptop and when all failed to work, just went to the galley to chat with the FA about the plane. Told them before hand about my interest in planes. I was skeptical of what they would think if I say I am checking out the plane !

20130928_055346 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20130928_063701 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20130928_064823 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

We overflew Grand Canyon and some snow clad peaks in Colorado

20130928_075346 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20130928_075418 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20130928_082204 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20130928_122315 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20130928_122910 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20130928_122910 by
ameyajoshi, on Flickr

The landing was amazing on runway 14R, so I missed the approach over the lake. Bags took a long long time to come out and I headed to my hotel, the first of the three which i will be staying in chicago.

With this conference taking a lot of time, I dint have a lot of slots available in my work to type in this report and hence I have done it pretty haphazardly this time around.

To fill up the gaps in writing, I have added pics !

Hope you like it

ameya · Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 6:27 am Post subject:

Ohh Yes I did miss something !

Flight Details

UA 494
B757-200
MSN 24872, 312th 757
N519UA
23.1 yrs old
Mfg in 1990

As per plane spotters this is due to FedEx any time

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Sir, thank you for a part which all of us were looking forward to.
It is nice you could find some time for sightseeing while at Irvine.
I have never seen the Orange Country airport, thanks for the pictures and the descriptions. This was on my radar in 2005 on my first San Diego trip, and this November too, but the costs were a bit too prohibitive, and SAN proved to be nearer. Small airports some times have some interesting plane types and traffic. I remember seeing a few F-16s taking off before me at MSN: Madison, which is a small airport with not-so-heavy traffic, and tickets are costly because of the limited connectivity!
You did not tell us much about the conversation with the cabin crew: what was it like? Thanks for some nice pictures as well. And yes, by the way, I do not quite agree with you on the `American portions' meal part, for obvious reasons Very Happy

Looking forward to the next part!
Cheers, Sumantra.

sabya99 · Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 6:22 pm Post subject:

Yes, in Texas, NM and California meals are huge. Perhaps these people have nothing else to do but eating. You won’t find such meals in New York area. Overall a nice trip report. Hope you enjoy your stay in USA in these troubled times.
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Sabya99

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

sabya99 · Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 7:33 pm Post subject:

ameya · Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 7:46 pm Post subject:

Thanks Mr.Ganguly & Sumantra Sir for your comments.

Mr.Ganguly, since yesterday my friends have been emailing me and messaging me this
"Kingfisher mein gaya, airline band kiya, USA mein gaya.. government hi band ho gaya, please wapis maat ana, tu panawti hai"

Sumantra Sir - The conversation was good. The crew was very friendly and warm. Way better than what the Indian crew is. UA is a nice airline, though it does not serve food, the drink service and clean up post that was swift, polite, multiple rounds to clean up and offer again.

As for the talk, the lady FA said she would not want to get into any other place because more FA are cramped in the same space these days. The lead FA said how they find it difficult at times to get the aircraft started the way it should be.

Like on my flight, they started the safety video on the common big screens (not even drop down) and twice it stopped midway, finally the third time it was completed.

Look at the age old call button

20130928_085545 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

I pointed out to the FA, how the modern planes and for that matter even the B737s have small holding area at the overhead bins. If you would have noticed, FA hold there on both sides and walk in bad WX and the same does not exist on the 757, to which I got an answer that they are pro of bad weathers and all those who have to hold to walk should be fired.

I promptly walked back to my seat and continued the rest of the flight there

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Enjoyed it, Sir - thank you! `can't wait for more...

jbalonso777 · Posted: Thu Oct 03, 2013 10:23 pm Post subject:

Beautiful, sir.
Stunning pictures of the B757 wing.

Lovely pictures of the GC and the surroundings, too!

Looking forward to the rest!

Regards
Jish
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http://www.youtube.com/c/JishnuBasu777

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

Thanks for sharing your 757 experience. .. it is indeed unique

I still cherish my flights on the B752 and B753

Nimish · Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 6:27 pm Post subject:

Lovely episode on the 757 - which is quite an experience to fly on! Next time if you have a chance, try them on United's PS trans-continental service - they have 757s configured there with only Y+ - so you're assured of getting a Y+ seat Smile

.

I find the service on board the American carriers pretty decent. It's efficient, to the point, and there's rarely the signs of running out of time to "service" the middle rows (as we often have on our desi LCCs).
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We miss you Nalini!

ameya · Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 3:26 pm Post subject:

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi