Trip Report: SAN-IAD-LGA
I took the redeye to New York, knowing I'd already be jet-lagged so I wouldn't have an issue falling asleep on the airplane. Indeed, I got a good 3.5 hrs of sleep on this 4.5 hour flight. We did get served a snack, which is a standard fruit and cheese plate with a fresh-baked cookie. Interestingly, I think my airplane was an ex-Ted aircraft, Ted being the former low-cost arm of United. So it didn't have a full galley, and I think the flight attendant pulled the unbaked cookies from a cooler bag in the overhead bin. At first I thought she was heating up a dinner in a tin tray she brought from home, but then I saw her sliding the cookies from the tin tray onto our meal trays.
I had actually pre-ordered a Low-Fat Meal, but it didn't make it onto the plane. I knew the service was going to be a fruit and cheese plate which I'd had several times before (although this was more bountiful than I remembered). And I had read on flyertalk.com that the Low-Fat Meal (airline code: LFML) would be a chilled, grilled chicken breast and some kind of grain. Oh well, I used one of the quart-sized ziploc bags I took from San Diego security checkpoint to store the cheese, crackers, and grapes for a snack later. I really like how user-friendly San Diego airport is.
In Dulles, I was excited to try the new AeroTrain, which is replacing most of the moon buggy transports. It is very nice to take a fast, frequent train. But because the planners (smartly) built the C terminal train station where the future terminal will be (the current terminal being a "temporary" one despite being in use for many years and indefinitely into the future), it meant a LOOOOONG walk to the train station, in the opposite direction of where the train would be taking me.
IAD-LGA was a standard regional jet flight, operated by ASA which is a new operator for United Express since Mesa Airlines is being phased out. The seats looked brand new, so not sure if they refurbished their planes before being put to use for United.
