Trip report YYZ-ORD-SAN SAN-SFO-YYZ

First of all my thank to those who replied with advice about getting better
seats on a full flights. I wound up with middle seats on my outbound segments
after I had to change flight to one day earlier. The good news is that I
wound up in an Economy Plus aisle and a window.

24/10 UA1017 YYZ/ORD Arrival at YYZ and going through customs was a breeze 1pm
on a Friday afternoon. I sat in 6C for UA1017 (737-500). Boarding started 5
min. late as plane arrived late from ORD. First strike to happen was that the
overheads were full from all the 1K crowd getting on board before others. Had
to gate check the bag through to SAN. :-( Second strike, audio not working,
so no ATC for me. Flight was full to the gills, so I could not plug it in
elsewhere. Economy+ seats were fine, though the interior were aging. Pushed
back on time, headed to the other side of YYZ for takeoff on 23. Inflight was
good. I think this was my first time with an all male cabin crew on board.
On arrival, we came straight in and landed on 14R a few minutes early. This
gave me almost an hour to make my way from the far end of C to the far end of
B.

24/10 UA799 ORD/SAN Got to gate with plenty of time to spare. Found out the
plane got downsided from A320 to A319. Some folks in the back got re-assigned
to middle
seats. Boarding on time and left the gate on time. a few minutes before push
back, it started to drizzle and was light rain by the time we started taxing.
Seat audio this time worked. Apron(ground) ATC welcomed UA799 with proceed
your
taxing following company to the runway and by the way it looks like you are
about number 30. They were using 22 and 27L for takeoffs. We wound up being
at the other end of the runaway and slowly made our way to the head of the
line.
It took us almost 30 minutes to get onto the "runway and hold". We started
rolling about 30 seconds later. Flight service was the bun with turkey and
was more that I expected. (Gate staff said, nachoes and drink service.) Most
planes headed west seemed to be hunting for a smooth altitude. We headed to
FL23, then FL33, down to FL29 and considered trying FL35 or FL39 but wound up
at FL31. FL31 was fine with occasional light shop which became continuous
light chop from about TX/NM border until decent to SAN. Came straight in on
27 and was 15 min late at the gate. Got off the plane and headed to the
bags. UA799's bags had to wait while bags from another flight just went round
and round with nothing coming out the chute. After 30 minutes, our bags
started coming out, FC and priority bags came out, mine was 6th one out.

31/10 UA1048 SAN/SFO The A320 was late coming down from SFO so boarding was
25 minutes late 17:58 and 10 minutes late pushing back @ 1815. Finally got
off the ground on 27 at 18:27. Flight uneventful landing on 28R at 1936 and
at gate 70 at 1940. Getting off the plane, I found I had to make my way to
Gate 21. Why doesn't SFO have air side transfers between terminals? I had to
leave air side T3 and walk to Gate 21 in T1.

31/10 AC754 SFO/YYZ You have to go through security again. I was not in a
rush, stopped to have something to eat, fortunately had no wait at security,
although they did have to do a hand wand. I guess the metal buttons on my
shirt and pants set it off. Boarding was ontime at 2150 but the FO informed
us gate of a ground stop for 15 minutes due to fast tailwinds would get us
into YYZ before the 0600 curfew lifts for start of operational day and our
speed would be also reduced enroute. Push back at 2238 for takeoff on 01R at
2252 (rolling start). AC served a steak and cheese wrap, potato salad, semi
rock hard bun and chocolate dipped cookies. After the meal, I dozed off and on
for most of the flight. The woke us up 30 minutes before touch down. We
touched down on 23 at 0608 and proceeded to taxi down 15R on the back side of
the airport instead of the usual taxi down the taxiway to left of 15L which is
closer to the terminals.
The taxi seemed faster going down the runway instead of the taxiway. We got
to the gate at 0618. (second flight through T2 customs. LAX beat us by a
couple of minutes.) Customs was fast with the usual questions.

Side note: My prayers go out to all those affected by the wildfires in the
SoCal
area and especially to those whose lost loved ones.

howard.