Flight Review: United Airlines 767 from Paris to Newark

Quick Details
Flight Number: United 55
Flight Path: Paris (CDG) – Newark (EWR)
Flight Date: Saturday, May 14
Departure Time: 12:20 PM
Arrival Time: 3:30 PM (same day)
Aircraft: Boeing 767-400ER
Seat Number: 20 K (Econ Plus), Upgraded from 42 K
Paid: 30,000 miles ($76.56 tax)

Before I get into reviewing the flight, let it be known now for those who have never flown out of Charles de Gaulle airport, showing up 3 hours early for your flight gets you there with only about 15 minutes to spare. Their security and custom checkpoints are slow. I mean really slow. Plus their airport is a bit confusing to walk around. Overall it was a mess.

Originally my fiance and I booked this flight near the back of the plane but because of my silver status with United, I was able to upgrade us to economy plus when checking in 24 hours prior to our flight.

This plane is the same exact Boeing model as our flight to London. Going off the previous review I wrote, the seats were still comfortable but near the end I was ready to start walking around. The screen was still a good size and responsive, it still had a USB port in the front and the power outlet was still available between our seats.

In the last review I mentioned how the plane on the way out featured April’s entertainment selection, even though it was May. Well, this flight was updated! It worked out pretty well for us since we had completely different movie and TV selections on the two flights.

WiFi could also be purchased on the plane for $16.99 for the entire flight. Though you wouldn’t be able to stream anything. Just meant for checking email and browsing the web.

Food/Beverage

The food service took a while to get started and when it finally did, it came in a hurry. The options were chicken or pasta. I went with chicken. What I wasn’t told was that it was a curry chicken. Not the biggest fan of curry chicken. That’s partially my fault for not asking exactly what kind of chicken it was. Though to be honest, it wasn’t too bad. I liked it better than I thought I would.

We received chocolate sherbet on this flight, which tasted much better than the mango, and in the afternoon received a turkey and cheese sandwich. I have to apologize, I didn’t get photos of them. I ate the sherbet quickly to get the taste of curry out of my mouth. When the sandwich was passed out, I had just woken up and really wanted to eat something. Sorry!

The beverage options were complimentary beer and wine (in addition to the regular non-alcoholic drinks). For wine there was a Merlot and a Chardonnay option. I was told that the Chardonnay was better this flight than the previous one. For beer you could get Budweiser, Miller Lite, Heineken and Goose Island IPA. Fun Fact: I thought Goose Island and Heineken would be an up charge, but apparently they are complimentary, so don’t be afraid to order that higher class of beer!

Service

United airlines in general isn’t know for their outstanding service. Though I have to say, most of the time I have great flight attendants. Maybe it’s because I have low expectations but I am generally happy with their service. However, this flight seemed especially rushed in the beginning and then disinterested by the end. I know that flight attendants have to provide people with food and beverages pretty early on in the flight, but this seemed like a race against …. well, I don’t know what. In doing so I overheard several instances where the flight attendants gave out the wrong beverages (happened to us also), the wrong food, and had just a general “snippy” attitude.

Then after they passed out water bottles to everyone, you didn’t see another flight attendant until the last hour of the flight. Maybe there were other people they were helping behind me that I couldn’t see. But from looking around my section, and the few times I got up to go to the bathroom or walk around, I couldn’t find a single flight attendant.

Bottom Line

I have been lucky recently with United flight attendants and have had good experiences with their service. This flight I am going to chalk up to people just having an off day. Although I learned two important things, get the better beer on flights and always ask what kind of chicken they are serving.