United is reinstating a United 93 as a flight starting 21 May 2011.

The flight used to be  operated by United from Newark to San Francisco using a Boeing 757 until September 11, 2001. On that date, approximately 46 minutes into the flight, hijackers diverted the plane towards Washington, D.C. The asumption is the target was the US Capitol or White House.

The passengers attempted to regain control of the plane from the hijackers  causing the plane to crash into fields in Pennsylvania, about 240 km  from  D.C. killing everybody.

 A movie was made about the hijacking.

United removed Flight 93 after the September 11 hijackings.

The new flight number is a codeshare flight from Houston to San Jose CA and is actually Continental flight CO489. However UA 93 will appear in terminals. It is a 737.

I am not sure I feel okay about using this flight number.

According to Airways Magazine for June 2011, one out of every 350 barrels of oil produced in the world is used by the combined United-Continental airlines to fuel their 1262 planes!

Every increase in oil has gotta hurt.
Whats their long term plan for oil one wonders?
If peak oil theory is correct then they face a very expensive future as oil becomes even pricier.

Dawn in the air

In the film: Up in the Air, George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a guy with the goal of earning one million miles with the one airline.

Today, I reached the milestone of one million miles in the air (1.6 million kilometres).  My life does not completely rsemble Clooney's movie character, however. I actually love being home and I like people but I do like my elite statuses: 

• United Airlines Gold
• Virgin Blue Gold
• Qantas Platinum 

I measure my air life at a great flight tracking tool called FlightMemory.  My friend Tony, who passed away two years ago entered almost 500 flights into the Flight Memory system for me  as a Birthday present. RIP Tony, I miss you. So here is the summary:


You will note, that one million miles represents 40 times around the earth. It is the same distance to the moon and back - twice.

On Board Singapore Airlines A380- my first ever A380

To get to one million miles, I have flown 719 times between 1968 and 2011 on 73 airlines.  One third of my flights have been with Qantas and one tenth with United/Continental.
Some of the airlines I have flown are now:

•  now broke and gone eg Ansett, Independence 
•  morphed eg BOAC into British Airways
•  taken over eg Northwest, Impulse
• much better eg Virgin Blue
• much worse eg United

I took this while on a 3 mile run from my LAX airport hotel

I have been transported to 177 airports in 34 countries on five continents. Interestingly, I have been to 46 countries in total in my life with some places visited by train or bus only. Not surprisingly,  two Australian  airports Sydney and Melbourne account for about 40% of all my airports visited. I have been to 54 airports only once. Airport highlights:

• Most northern airport: GRY, Grimsey, Iceland 
• Most southern airport: IVC, Invercargill, New Zealand 
• Most eastern airport: NAN, Nadi, Fiji 
• Most western airport:  APW, Apia, Samoa
• Most visited airport: MEL, Melbourne, Australia
• Favourite airport: SIN, Singapore, Singapore
• Most despised airport: LAX, Los Angeles, USA

I have used 48 different types of planes:-
All the boeings: 707, 717, 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777
Airbus: 300, 310, 319, 320, 330, 340, 380
DC 8, 9, 10
Canadairs, Embraers, Fokkers, Saabs. I even been on a Zepplin.
NB Two of those planes, the 737 and 767 represent almost half of all the planes I have flown on!
The only planes not flown are Russian planes eg Tupolovs etc
I love the 777 and A380. I have loved my flights with six exceptions eg having flown through a thunderstorm in a Beechcraft- never again.

I am so fortunate to have seen the sights that I have seen:
Europe : Bruges, Mont St Michel, Taize, Venice, Tour Eiffel, Paris, WW1 Belgian war-fields, Krakow Market Square, Koln Dom, Bilbao, Reykjavik, Auschwitz
USA: Mt Rushmore, Devil's Tower, Cape Canaveral, climbing statue of Liberty, Grand Canyon,Yosemite, New York, Chicago, Boston, Portland ME, Portland, OR
Middle East: Bethlehem, Nazereth and Jerusalem,
Australia: Great Barrier Reef, Ningaloo, Uluru, kangaroo Island, Coober Pedy, Brokjen Hill, Lake Pedder, The Pinnacles, Uluru, kakadu, Wave Rock,
Canada: CN Tower, Toronto Islands,
New Zealand: Milford Track, Queen Charlotte Sound
Tropical Islands: , Fiji, Hawaii, New Caledonia and Samoa.
Waterfalls: Niagara Falls, Victoria Falls, Russell Falls, Gullfoss
Musuems; Anne Frank House, British Museum, Frick Collection, Guggenheim, Holocaust Museum DC, In Flanders Fields Museum, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musee d Orsay, NGA Canberra, Powerhouse Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, SFMOMA, Smithsonian, Vatican, Yad Vashem

The best part of the travel. Making and staying friends with people who live from the USA to Argentina, from New Zealand to New York, to South Africa Thanks for sharing the journey with me!

Finally, for the last ten years, I have been offsetting my travel buying trees to absorb carbon pollution. Not the best solution but a start. I now offset 110% of my carbon output.

So whats my goal? Another million miles? Not sure yet!

Qantas has announced they will now fly direct to Dallas Fort Worth from Sydney from May, 2011 using a Boeing 747-400ER. It is intended when Qantas finally get their 787s, they will be used on this route.

At 13 879 km (8,624 miles), this will be  the third-longest route in the world! The flights would take about 17 hours. There are three huge pluses about this:

1. We can avoid LAX (my most hated airport) to get to the middle of the USA. DFW is a much more user friendly airport and is well connected to the rest of the USA and South America. I rank it seventh best in world!
2. It will save time. Flights from Syd to DFW take 20-21 hours now via LAX. Currently Flights from SYD to NYC via LAX take 22-23 hours now. Via Dallas this could fall by an hour or two 
3. it connects passengers straight into the middle of the American Airlines network (Qantas and American are One World partners)

The downsides:

1. the airline will drop San Francisco which has not generated enough corporate traffic
2. the flight back will stop at Brisbane which will negate a little of the time saving. This is because the distance si too far and with the strong Pacific winds, there wont be enough fuel reserves to make it to Sydney non stop! Brisbane is 400km closer from Dallas (clearly there is not going to be much reserve fuel!

United are talking about deploying the new 787 on an Auckland-Houston flight, Suddenly, down under and Texas are looking closer!

Watch for Qantas opening flight deals and watch for United and Delta to offer deals between Dallas and Australia!

Having just had a horror United Airlines recently, I found this report very fascinating. US News used information produced by the UN Department of Transport and produced an excellent slide show.  Best to worst

1. Hawaiian Airlines (excellent on time performance and customer satisfaction ratings)
2. AirTran (high customer satisfaction and good baggage handling)
3. JetBlue (great customer satisfaction)
4. Southwest ( lowest % of customer complaints)
5. Continental  (consistently good for six years)
6. Frontier (similar rating as Continental)
7. US Airways (scores have been improving)
8. American (the worst airine for baggage losses)
9. Alaska (good on-time performance but passenger dissatisfaction)
10. United (with the lowest passenger satisfaction score)
11. Delta (most delays and most passenger complaints)

From my own experience, this is my current rating of the airlines in the USA (notice some overlaps!)

1. Virgin America-everything about VA is class-hope they can hang onto this as they expand
2. JetBlue
3. AirTran- 
4. Southwest Airlines-
5. Frontier Airlines
6. Continental
7. Alaska Airlines
8. United Airlines- 
9. American Airlines 
10. US Airways 
11. Delta

See my list of best airlnes and worst.

This sunset shot taken en route from LAX to Pittsburgh.

This was my 53rd United Airlines flight and my 60th flight at LAX!.

This was a superb flight...pretty much 5 out of 5!
Friendly staff, clean plane.

Thanks Rob and team!

This flight was in huge is contrast with yesterday's abysmal United Airlines flight from Syd to Los Angeles (check out review).

Dear United Airlines

Not flying with you between Australia and the USA again (I still have to fly home with you!) because:

• your 747 is so old and so tatty, it looks like no one cares. So much so the woman next to me was nervous that the maintenance was being done in the same slip shod fashion.
• your staff were very unfriendly They didn't care and resented the passengers being there. The Cabin crew chatted through the safety briefing. They gossiped loudly in the galley when people were trying to sleep. They visibly read magazines when on duty (some airlines are a little more subtle). They served the meals resentfully (although in fairness the meals were so bad, it was probably resentment at having to serve them to humans)
• the meals served in the  Economy cabin are miserly. Compare your meals with Qantas and Air New Zealand on the same sector. eg United's breakfast offering was only fruit or scrambled eggs and a small croissant compared to Qantas who provide scrambled egg or omelet, Cereal, jam for the croissant/muffin and yoghurt. In addition both Qantas and Air New Zealand have a snacking arrangement through the flight eg Qantas hands out a snack pack to every passenger.
• The standard of the aforementioned United breakfast. It was the worst I have ever been served on that sector. Why bother serving it? Despite hunger I and the passenger next to me left it almost untouched. Tasteless eggs served in an unappealing lump with a stale croissant and butter
• you are still giving Economy passengers one video screen in each section with no choice of shows for 13.5 hours? For crying out loud! Real airlines now have individual entertainment units. For example, while you have 12 music channels, Air NZ has SIX PAGES of radio and CD choices

Your staff and management need to fly as passengers on a real airline like Qantas, Air NZ or V Australia on that sector and see how it can be done so much better.

To add insult to injury was the video telling me I was on one of the world's great airlines. Having just flown Emirates, that made me laugh! Emirates are definitely one of the world's great airlines. Not United!

Today's Trip gets 2 out of 5, bringing my overall United Airlines rating to 3.4 (Same sector competitors: Air New Zealand 4.9 Qantas 4.8).


See my previous reviews of travel with United for Melbourne-Sydney-Los Angeles -Chicago:

• Part One: Check in & prep etc for MEL-SYD-LAX
• Part Two: Mel-SYD the Unfriendly way
• Part Three: SYD-Chicago The Skies get friendlier

Finally, check out how to do it properly: This is my review of Emirates Auckland to Sydney on the Airbus A380  

I have just flown United 13 times in March and they were scarily impressive. I was wondering how much of this is because of the United Continental merger?

United Airlines and Continetal are merging to form the world's biggest airline. The merged airline will be called United. In other words adios Continental name but the planes post merger will carry the Continental colours and logo (see picture from the merger website). A number of my planes were in this logo format on my last trips.


United and Continental are continuing to fly separately but clearly lots of "back room" integration is going on.


When merged, the airline will serve 371 destinations in 59 countries (although 223 are in the USA). 5811 flights depart daily on the two airlines and 144 million people a year fly UnitedContinental.
Let me declare, I really like Continental. In July, they were my sixth favourite airline. I wonder which culture will survive the merger. Praying its Continental. The management of the new merged entity are praying they will survive at all in the tough world of aviation. Merging may mean any name survives for a little longer as they compete against the other mega giants. Delta flies 161million passengers a year, Southwest who are taking over AirTran101 million and American 85 million.
The question is who will American merge with? USAir? (51million) Alaska- 15m? JetBlue22m? British 32m?

I just ticked over total flying time of 85 days or   2040:40 hours!  I was tickled with that number 2040:40!!!!   This has taken me  647 flights. I am on the way to the magic one million miles - about 1.6 million kilometres! Over half of those miles have been with one airline: Qantas. A third has been with United Airlines, Cathay Pacific, British Airways, American Airlines, Air New Zealand and Continental Airlines combined. The remainder is split between 60 other airlines!

My Craft foreground-the other United plane heads to SFO

Me (Martin J Cowling) on Board the 747

1. The contents are on the healthier end but not that exciting...after 15 hours of travel, I would have killed for fresh fruit,
2. $1 from each box is donated to Feeding America®
3. packaging was designed by an 18 year old high schooler engaged in a development program in Chicago

Meal (?) service consisted of orange juice, a choice of another drink and a packet of mini pretzels (made in Ohio). More than Virgin gives for free for the same route but less than Qantas offerings. With the plane only  a quarter full, meal service was over quickly and cabin crew could get back to chatting in the galley.

The flights between Australia and the USA are considered to amongst the longest non stops in the world. For example at 7921 miles (12, 748 kilometres), the 15.25 hour Los Angeles to Melbourne is the fifth longest scheduled flight in the world


I have flown from Australia to the West Coast of the USA/Canada 21 times and I have flown back 17 times. (No, I have not stayed in the US 4 times...thats the consequence of my favourite ticket:- the Round the World Ticket.

So in total I have had 38 Pacific crossings by air.

I have done a crossing in either direction five times with Air New Zealand, once with Air Canada, twice with Continental (who no longer fly it) and twice with the friendly skies (United). This means Qantas 26 crossings!

Today Crossing Number 39 is with United...I have not flown them on this sector since 1995!

Having got a super cheap fare, I used my points to apply for an upgrade to Business and thats where the fun began. I was waitlisted for the upgrade, then it was confirmed! Yippee! When I got to the airport, however, I found out that I had lost it again! There were now 12 passengers waiting for 3 seats. The nice thing was that the Melbourne Check in supervisor personally came down to apologise to me for the lack of upgrade. She did say that there was a possibility out of SYD still (1 in 4 chance!)

Booking 10/10
Web-site 10/10
Reservations Telephone staff  10/10
Check In:  United 10/10

Security: United 10/10 -  I got an Express Pass which got me through security in a few minutes...only glitch was when my Vegemite (savoury spread used by Australians on toast) was confiscated under the liquid, gels, rule.  I knew about perfumes, water, moisturiser etc but vegemite!!!!!!!!! A completely sealed jar!!! Apparently one can smuggle explosives in it! But up to now, I did not consider how dangerous the world considers Australian Vegemite!

United have their own lounge for its frequent frequent flyers. Its adequate with free wifi but NOT a patch on Qantas! Still free food and drinks before a flight is appreciated. Staff were very friendly and welcoming! Thanks team!

Breakfast was rubbery sausages, runny scrambled eggs, nice fresh fruit, toast (honeys, jams and vegemite!!!!!!)

Check out Part Two where I discover the not so friendly skies with United on the first leg of my flight