A United Airlines A320. Photo / Getty Images
Stephanie Holmes flies United Airlines flight UA613 from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
The plane: A320.
Class: Economy.
Price: At the time of going to print, the lowest price available on United.com was $152.
Flight time: Supposed to be 1h 48m, but ended up at just 1h 20m.
My seat: 7D, an aisle seat at the front of the Economy Cabin. There was a wall in front separating us from United First. It was as comfortable as it needs to be for such a short flight.
Fellow passengers: A mix of business and leisure travellers.
How full: Completely but the usual jostle for overhead locker space seemed to be quite orderly.
Entertainment: There are no seat-back, armrest or overhead TV screens on these flights, but you can watch TV shows and movies using the United app and free inflight Wi-Fi. I started to watch the movie I hadn't finished on my connecting flight from Auckland, but in the end just napped instead.
The service: Not much time for the cabin crew to do much, but the two female flight attendants were friendly and efficient. They handed out small bags of deliciously sweet wafer-thin, maple cookies and cups of water or orange juice.
The toilets: I held on.
Luggage: I had a through ticket from Auckland and had been travelling in Premium Plus, so had allowance for two checked bags.
The airport experience: I got through San Francisco quickly and easily, which was a nice surprise compared to my visit there last year which took more than 90 minutes in a queue to get through immigration alone. At LAX's Terminal 7, my suitcase arrived within 10 minutes and I was in my Uber about 10 minutes after that.
The bottom line: Solid effort for a short hop.
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