On May 23rd of this year, United Airlines began seasonal non-stop service between Barcelona, the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia, and its main West Coast hub in San Francisco with the Boeing 777-200ER. So far, this is the only flight by a U.S. airline from the West Coast to Barcelona, and the only one not operated by Spanish low-cost carrier Level. Furthermore, this is now the 4th route United operates between the Spanish city and the United States, the others being between Barcelona and Chicago-O’Hare, Washington-Dulles, and Newark, although only one of them, EWR-BCN, is operated year-round. Since it’s been a while since I’ve done a flight with a United 772, I figured that this was a great way to ring in 24.3.
Server: Solo
Airline: United Airlines
Aircraft: Boeing 777-224ER
Origin: Josep Taradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport, El Prat de Llobregat, Spain (BCN)
Destination: San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California (SFO)
Flight Number: UA673
Route: LEBL - KSFO
Seat: 8L (Polaris)
Time En Route: 11 Hours 45 Minutes
Boarding in Barcelona, with our aircraft, N79011, being one of 22 777-224ERs inherited from the merger with Continental Airlines. These aircraft are distinguished from United’s original 777-222s and -222ERs by their General Electric GE90-92B engines. With the inclusion of the ex-CO 777s, I feel like I now have to distinguish between them and the UA birds with their full designations, Boeing Customer Code and all, for accuracy’s sake.
Settling backs for the roughly 12-hour flight to San Fran in a Polaris business class-seat. Another thing about the -224ERs is that they don’t show up on the West Coast as often, or at least not as often as United’s original 777-200s. These jets largely hang around the East Coast, Chicago, and Continental’s former home base of Houston-Intercontinental, being commonly used on flights to Europe, South America, Africa (EWR and IAD to Cape Town) and a few to East Asia (IAH to Narita along with EWR and IAD to Haneda).
Loud GE90 takeoff out of BCN
Over the Bay of Biscay…
…and the southern tip of Greenland…
…and the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains
Landing on a relatively clear night at SFO. It’s not unusually for SFO to be blanketed with fog, which makes departures from 28L and 28R pretty hairy due to the mountain right by the departure end of the runways. In June of 1998, United Flight 863, a 747-400 heading to Sydney, nearly collided with San Bruno Mountain after an in-flight engine shutdown shortly after takeoff, missing the moutain by only 100 feet or so and disappearing from ATC’s radar momentarily.
Parked at the gate and ready to deplane
One last look at our chariot, as it were. Already, the ground crews are getting it ready for its next flight, across the Pacific to Taipei as UA 853.