United 787 BusinessFirst Houston to London

Introduction

United 787 BusinessFirst Houston to London

London Edition

United 767 BusinessFirst London to Houston

After heading to DEN around 1PM, we had an uneventful flight down to Houston on the United "Friendship" A320.  Always cool to see that old school livery.  The plane was equipped with United's inflight WiFi ($6.99) which made the 2:19 flight go by quickly.

We made our way over to Terminal E and didn't have long to wait to board the aircraft  We were lucky to fly the Dreamliner in January from Tokyo to LA on the way back from our honeymoon.  The day we landed in LA was also the day the JAL 787 caught fire which was one of the incidents that caused the plane to be grounded for so long.  The plane really is amazing.  The cabin is spacious with massive windows that don't have shades - there is a button that you can push to darken/lighten each window.  The cabin is pressurized to a lower altitude so in theory, the impact of flying is reduced.  I can't say I've actually experienced that but it's nice marketing. 

Boarding the 787 was quick and we made our way to 4A and 4B.  The flight time for United flight 4 was scheduled for a short 7:40.  We enjoyed a few glasses of wine with our meal, watched a movie, and went quickly to sleep.  With such a short flight and only 2.5 days in London, we wanted to get as much sleep as possible.  The 787 BusinessFirst seats are great in that they angle away from the aisle so you get a bit more privacy than on other aircraft.  That said, row 4 kind of sucked as we were so close to the galley.  The United flight attendants talked pretty much the entire flight, didn't turn off the light in the galley or shut the curtain.  Pretty standard stuff for US flight attendants though.

The United bedding is actually super comfortable.  A full sized pillow and soft duvet are enough to help me sleep just about anywhere.  Unlike most European/Asian airlines, United has individual air nozzles meaning you can control the temperature (i.e. make it as cold as possible) to ensure you're comfortable.

I slept for a solid four hours, watched an episode of Entourage, and changed out of my pajamas before landing.  We were quickly off the plane, through immigration, and on our way into London via the Heathrow Express.