The Details

• Flight: UA938
• Aircraft: B767-300ER
• Class: Economy
• Seat: 41K and 41L
• Route: Chicago O’Hare International (ORD)-London Heathrow (LHR)
• Distance: 3,259 miles
• Duration: 7hrs 5min
• Departure: 9:26PM
• Arrival: 10:50AM

The Preflight

For Valentines Day this year my SO and I decided to take a short weekend vacation in London. We got to the airport roughly 90 minutes before the scheduled departure at 9:05PM.

This flight was the first time in a very long time that I would be flying United, which departs from Terminal 1 at Chicago O’Hare. Since we didn’t have elite status or lounge access with United, my SO and I had dinner at Tortas Frontera (definitely one of the best airport restaurants in the nation).

We started off with a Bloody Mary and guacamole to share.

We also split an excellent Chipotle Chicken torta.

Almost all of the international wide-body United flights depart from the C concourse of Terminal 1 connected by underground walkway. Our flight was departing from gate C15. The B767-300ER, N671UA, was delivered to United Airlines back in 1999!

Boarding began exactly at 8:15PM. The flight load was light and so boarding was extremely quick. The doors closed well ahead of the scheduled departure time of 9:05PM. However, we still were held at the gate for about 30 minutes before pushback at 9:30PM.

The Flight

This plane had recently been retrofitted in a High J ( 46 business seats) configuration with 18 rows of Polaris business seats in a 1-1-1 configuration, 22 premium economy seats in a 2-3-2 configuration, and 99 economy seats in a 2-4-2 configuration.

I actually love flying on both the B767s and A330s in economy because of the fact that there are rows of two with window and aisle without middle seats.

We were seated in 41K and 41L on the starboard side of the aircraft. Economy seats have 30″ of pitch with 18.5″ of width.

The seatback IFE entertainment was fixed and the tilt not adjustable. The 30 inches of pitch definitely made the later half of the flight uncomfortable, especially once the passenger in front reclined backwards.

The IFE screen was high resolution and responsive. I loved the detail on the flight information screen.

At each seat was a thin blanket and standard economy pillow.

We had a very short taxi to the runway. Enjoy!

Once we reached cruising altitude the flight attendants sprang into action. Dinner was served immediately and consisted of either “chicken” or “pasta”.

A beverage service accompanied the dinner service. I had a glass of mysterious red wine served in the United blue cup with my chicken dish. The chicken dish was flavorful but very rich and oily. There was also a side salad, cold bread, and bottle of water.

Dessert was a very frozen Lemon Sorbetto.

The rest of the flight was uneventful and my SO managed to sleep the entire flight. I watched a few movies and got about two hours of shut-eye.

Breakfast was served 45 minutes prior to landing and consisted of the tiniest croissant and a plain Chobani yogurt with strawberry jam.

It was very stormy around London Heathrow as we were in a holding pattern for quiet a while.

I managed to catch another United B777 doing the same holding pattern as us at a different altitude.

Eventually, we managed to land which was slightly bumpy.

We arrived at a remote stand and deplaned via stairs… Thanks for the ride!

Once the bus was packed to the brim it departed for the The Queen’s Terminal 2. There was a long line at immigration and about two hours after touching down we finally made it onboard the Tube.

All in all it was a pretty unremarkable and standard trans-Atlantic economy flight. While the seat was average and the food was below average, it was an affordable means of getting from Chicago to London.