UA951 BRU-IAD

[Predixs]

September 15th I boarded the United B772 N786UA with destination Washington Dulles.
Because of the Belgocontrol problem => (https://www.aviation24.be/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=59373) that day we had a departure delay of 47 minutes. But the crew had some tricks up their sleeves, instead of the planned Fl340 we climbed to Fl370 and because of this we arrived with only 1 minute of delay.

The Qatar dreamliner was on our left and this A330 of Etihad was waiting for a departure slot on our right.

Etihad A330

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The in flight entertainment was ok and completely free of charge. There were some nice movies and some TV/Music channels and even some basic games.

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The flight itself was very nice and mostly turbulence free and the cabin crew was very helpfull and nice to the passengers.

The inflight food was amazing! There was so much food and so many drinks
First we got a snack and a drink.

A light snack

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20 minutes later our dinner was served! Spinash Lasagnia or Chicken with Curry.

One of the best airline meals I ever had!

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Nextup was an Ice cream, honey and ginger ice cream to be exact.
A bit too much ginger for my taste

Honey and ginger ice cream

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After a while we were treated with a nice hot sandwich.

Hot Sandwich

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Some coffee is always a plus.

Coffee

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Some window pictures:

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Dirty wing

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Racing a CRJ of Delta

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Washington Dulles

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A nice golf course

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We went off the plane, got to the connecting flights terminal and grabbed our bags off the conveyor belt, walked 10m and dropped it on another conveyor belt, completely pointless and stupid! Then off to the security check again completely pointless in my opinion, there are no shops, nothing, so why are we checked again? It is all because we could have taken something out of our bags so if they just put the bags automatically on the other conveyor belt then people will hate IAD less for connecting flights. Because you loose 1-2 hours with this crazy system. After this screening we had border control, really happy and friendly people (Not at all). Finally after 2 hours and 30 minutes of queueing we were in the departure hall, it's a good thing we had 3 hours of connecting time!!!

Off to the next flight, UA1567, IAD - PHX. Maybe I'll make a flight report on this 5 hour flight as well Just stay tuned.

[sn26567]

Very nice report about all aspects of your flight. No alcohol served in economy class?

Arriving in the US is rarely a piece of cake, especially if you have a connecting flight. I see that things didn't change much. Pre-clearance in Europe on departure will be a big step forward!

[Stij]

Thanks for the report!

As Andre mentionned... changing in the US isn't easy...

Looking forward to your report on the connecting flight!

Stij

[convair]

We went off the plane, got to the connecting flights terminal and grabbed our bags off the conveyor belt, walked 10m and dropped it on another conveyor belt, completely pointless and stupid! Then off to the security check again completely pointless in my opinion, there are no shops, nothing, so why are we checked again? It is all because we could have taken something out of our bags so if they just put the bags automatically on the other conveyor belt then people will hate IAD less for connecting flights. Because you loose 1-2 hours with this crazy system. After this screening we had border control, really happy and friendly people (Not at all). Finally after 2 hours and 30 minutes of queueing we were in the departure hall, it's a good thing we had 3 hours of connecting time!!!

One should not lose sight of the fact that when you travel to the US, you have to go through customs and immigration control at your first point of entry.
Between the moment you grabbed your bags off the belt and drop them on the next belt, your bags were supposed to receive custom clearence. Most of the time today, it's a random check and you might not have noticed it even.
Now, for the security check before taking a domestic flight, they consider that all airports in the world are not equally safe (and, personnally, I would tend to agree with that), hence a check of their own, maybe not better, but it's their own...
It's the same system at JFK, Chicago, Atlanta etc...and you sure need to take that into account when planning your trip, specially your plane connections.
And, yes, they are very serious about it, bordering paranoia. Don't even think about testing their sense of humor there!!! You may be very sorry for that...

I know it's a pain in the.....but it's the way it is nowadays!

[Predixs]

Very nice report about all aspects of your flight. No alcohol served in economy class?

Arriving in the US is rarely a piece of cake, especially if you have a connecting flight. I see that things didn't change much. Pre-clearance in Europe on departure will be a big step forward!

I did see some small bottles of wine being passed around but I always chose for a soda or just some water when they drove their cart past our seats.

We went off the plane, got to the connecting flights terminal and grabbed our bags off the conveyor belt, walked 10m and dropped it on another conveyor belt, completely pointless and stupid! Then off to the security check again completely pointless in my opinion, there are no shops, nothing, so why are we checked again? It is all because we could have taken something out of our bags so if they just put the bags automatically on the other conveyor belt then people will hate IAD less for connecting flights. Because you loose 1-2 hours with this crazy system. After this screening we had border control, really happy and friendly people (Not at all). Finally after 2 hours and 30 minutes of queueing we were in the departure hall, it's a good thing we had 3 hours of connecting time!!!

One should not lose sight of the fact that when you travel to the US, you have to go through customs and immigration control at your first point of entry.
Between the moment you grabbed your bags off the belt and drop them on the next belt, your bags were supposed to receive custom clearence. Most of the time today, it's a random check and you might not have noticed it even.
Now, for the security check before taking a domestic flight, they consider that all airports in the world are not equally safe (and, personnally, I would tend to agree with that), hence a check of their own, maybe not better, but it's their own...
It's the same system at JFK, Chicago, Atlanta etc...and you sure need to take that into account when planning your trip, specially your plane connections.
And, yes, they are very serious about it, bordering paranoia. Don't even think about testing their sense of humor there!!! You may be very sorry for that...

I know it's a pain in the.....but it's the way it is nowadays!

Thanks for this clarification!
I still think it's strange, but hey it is still the USA that I was traveling to indeed.
Hopefully the pre-clearance will help travelers when flying to the United States in the future.


Then indeed the friendliness,
Me: "Hello, how are you"
He: "Documents"
...
Me: "Thanks and have a nice day sir"
He: "Next"

[nordikcam]

If possible why not connecting in YYZ Canada ? At the border they are friendly...more than in the US and we never have to wait so much. We connect smoothly.
It's what I'm doing every 3 months flying to Canada, US or Caribbe.