Flight Review: United (Economy) | Newark-Geneva | Boeing 767-300er

Hello everyone, and welcome to this new flight review! Last February, my family and I went on a skiing trip to Switzerland, and we flew directly on United. More details on this can be found in the introduction post. But let’s just get straight into the review!

We got to Newark’s Terminal C a couple hours earlier than our scheduled 5:50 PM departure time.

 

Unfortunately, the security guards at check in stopped me from taking any pictures or videos. I complied with the rules.

Here’s a picture of the parked planes right after clearing security:

Because there are no Priority Pass lounges in Terminal C, we went straight to Gate C74 where our ride to Geneva was already awaiting us.

Here was our neighbor, a 767-400 about to depart to Paris:

One restaurant which we had heard just opened was the Tsukiji Fishroom. We heard that it was famous because their fish was shipped daily from the Tsukiji Market in Tokyo. Given that we love sushi, we had to try it, and were very excited to see that it was right by our gate.

Despite the pretty good taste (for airport sushi), given the expensive price, we are not likely to come back soon.

Boarding started on time.

Flight Information

United Airlines 956

Plane Registration: N652UA

Plane Type: Boeing 767-300er

Flown: February 2018

Flight Time: ~7 Hrs 1 Min

Flight Distance: 3,878 Miles (~6,241 Km)

Seat: 36L (Economy)

The first impressions of the cabins were positive. I really liked the striped design of the leather seats. As expected, the plane was pretty much full. I though that the seat was comfortable. However, some other reviewers have thought otherwise. According to SeatGuru, all Economy seats were 17.3 inches wide and had 31 inches of pitch.

Although I knew that this plane was scheduled, I was happy to see that this was one of the 2012-retrofitted aircraft with the new seats and inflight-entertainment screens. I love how most 767s only have one middle seat per seven seats, and we were lucky enough to snag seats on the side of the aircraft.

Now let’s take a look at the inflight entertainment. The entertainment was displayed on a nine-inch HD touchscreen. The selection was one of the best I have ever seen. I counted 200 movies and 130 TV episodes. There were also games, music, and United Airlines information.

United even offered four of the Ice Age movies. I was all set for the flight! 🙂

United had FlightPath 2D for their mapping, which I thought was pretty interactive. I didn’t know planes are this big! 😉

Under the screen was a USB port and the headphone jack. There was even a power plug underneath the seat. The ports light up when you wave your had in front of it.

The one minor complaint I have about the system is that it does not tilt, meaning it is harder to watch a movie when the person in front of you is reclined.

United also offered inflight WiFi, even though I did not use it.

There were individual air nozzles above the seat.

Shortly after boarding was completed, flight attendants came around with complimentary earbuds. These weren’t the best quality and the volume was very low, but that is expected for Economy. I used my own Apple earbuds instead.

As we started pushing back, and the safety video began to play. I like United’s “Safety is Global” safety video. The video played with both English and French subtitles.

Around the time we pushed back and started taxiing, it started snowing. It didn’t seem like too big of a deal at first, but the snow got harder.

Eventually, it became clear that we needed to be de-iced. During the de-icing, I started watching Ratatouille, which I thought was a very cute movie.

After that was done, we quickly taxied to the active runway. Wheels were up at 6:52 or 6:53 PM. I will not be posting any photos of the takeoff since they came out pretty badly.

The snack+beverage service commenced shortly after takeoff.

Some time afterwards, it was time for dinner. The choices were chicken, pasta, or Asian vegetarian. I chose the pasta dish, which turned out to be a butternut squash pasta with a side salad and bread roll.

I honestly did not enjoy the pasta. However, I have never tried butternut squash pasta before, so it could just be that I don’t like that type of pasta in general. Therefore, I will not be too hard on United for this one.

I also tried the asian vegetarian meal that my dad ordered, which was really good. I took a future flight on United and had the vegetarian meal again, and it tasted great. If you are flying United, I highly recommend pre-ordering the Asian Vegetarian Meal or bringing your own food.

After clearing the trays, the flight attendants came around with caramel ice cream. It was super tasty, but let’s just say that after reading the sugar content on the side of the container, it stopped tasting good. 😉

 

Now I will talk about the service. There were French speaking attendants in case there were any Swiss natives going home, which is a plus. There were only a couple of flight attendants in our row, one of which was very friendly. She was having genuine conversations with some people while serving them, which generally makes passengers feel welcome. That is great for United.

After the meal, I played this puzzle game that I was addicted to.

I love the feature on United that allows you to listen to Air Traffic Control.

As we began our Atlantic crossing, I decided to get some sleep.

After a few hours, United came around with some fruit and a bar. Because I was not feeling that great, I didn’t have it.

Some time later, we were treated to a beautiful sunrise.

After flying over some European countries, we started our descent into Geneva.

Despite taking off about an hour late, we touched down on Runway 05 on time.

After a quick taxi, we arrived at a bus gate. Even though some people may dislike this, I enjoyed seeing the plane from the outside. Sorry I didn’t get a great shot from the bus.

Even though there was a line at immigration, we still went through pretty quickly and got to the baggage claim.

Right after that, we took the shuttle bus to the rental car pick up and picked up our car. Before we knew it, we were off to Verbier.

Overall, this flight was pretty good by United’s standards. I came into the flight with fairly low expectations, but the only thing that really disappointed me was the food. The hard product was top-notch for Western airline standards, and they had all the amenities you could need, even if they were not the best quality.

So I would recommend United on this route. Just remember to bring your own food or pre-order a special meal.