San Francisco International

I spent my layover in the Red Carpet Club in Terminal C. The lounge was very busy, but I was able to get a seat in the far right part close the Business Center and the quiet area. I grabbed a coffee and had a look at the items available for breakfast, but they were very limited and not au par with the offering in other lounges, e.g. Seattle. I updated my trip report and checked e-mails. This time, despite the many people with iPads, Laptops and other mobile devices connected to the internet, the speed was okay and I could even set up a VPN connection.

I noticed that my flight to Ontario was leaving from terminal 2, also used by US Airways and Alaska and this means I had to change terminals. There is a bus service running between both terminals allowing passenger to stay inside the secure area without the need to clear security at terminal 2 again. The bus is running frequently and the ride takes approximately ten minutes (they announce it with 15 minutes, but usually you are at the other terminal ten minutes later, sometimes it is even a quicker ride). I left the lounge at 12:15, 20 minutes prior to boarding time, which was a bit late, given that the shuttle has limited space and sometimes one has to wait. But there were no lines and I was in terminal 2 15 minutes after I left the lounge.

The gates in terminal 2 are not very clearly signposted – as I already noticed last year. Gate 32 C is a shared gate and also doubles as gate 32 A. Boarding hat not started as I arrived at the gate. But I did not have to wait for a long time. The zones were not really enforced. It was priority boarding for families with children and people with disabilities, followed by Zone 1 with Global Service and 1ks and then it was more or less all other zones. We were asked to have our IDs ready as TSA did an ID check in the jetbridge. My ID was checked it is also a bit irritating given my European education that I am always addressed by my first name, even by officials.

26 June 2013
SFO – ONT
[San Francisco International – Ontario International]
UA 5336 (Sky West dba United Airline Express); CRJ 200 (N938SW)
Gate 32 C
13:00 – 14:21 [effective 12:53 – 14:24]
Economy Class
Seat 5 C

The jetbrigde only lead us to the tarmac, the plane was entered via a ramp. Hand luggage was collected on a cart at the bottom of the ramp. It would be delivered at the plane in Ontario. The captain and the only flight attendant welcomed us at the door to our plane. In the internet the seat map on United did not show any available seats three days prior to my trip, but now there were open seats. And I was one of the lucky souls with a fee seat next to me. So I moved over to seat 5 A at the window as soon as the doors were closed. The captain welcomed us on board and mentioned the temperature in Ontario with 120° Fahrenheit – and received the necessary attention by the passenger. Soon after he had finished his speech regarding the flight time and the expected time of departure and arrival, the flight attendant performed the safety demonstration.

Time to share some information about N938SW: Our plane for the flight to Ontario was a CRJ 200 ER Regional Jet and belongs to the fleet of Sky West Airlines. SkyWest operated this plane for United Express. The seating was 50 seats in the Economy only cabin. Our CRJ-200 ER was delivered to SkwWest on January 29, 2003 and powered by two GE CF34-3B1 engines. The CRJ 200 ER is produced by Canadian Bombardier and the only difference from the CRJ-100 is a more efficient engine, otherwise the planes are identical. The CRJ-100 made its first flight on May 10, 1991. There is only the General Electric CF34-3B1 engine available for this plane. It has a thrust of 41 kn. The plane is 26.77 m long and has a wingspan of 21.21 m. It could load up to 6 tons and the ER version has a range of approximately 3000 km, while the LR version has a range of 3700 km.

We were pushed back soon later and taxied to the runway 1 L and took off towards the Bay and downtown San Francisco before me made a turn to the left offering a short view to Golden Gate Bridge before the view was covered by clouds who came from the Pacific Ocean. We flew over Gilroy and then over the valley east of the hills at the coast towards Bakersfield before we passed the San Bernardino Mountain and approached Ontario from the East.

During the flight a beverage service was done with Coffee, water, coke and sprit, other types of beverage were not available. The flight attendant was of average friendliness, she did her job and her friendliness was somehow not real. The flight was smooth but as soon as we had passed Bakersfield and crossed the San Bernardino Mountain the flight became bumpy.

We touched down at Ontario International Airport at 14:22 and taxied to our gate at the far left at Terminal 2 where we arrived only two minutes later. Ontario is a rather small airport, but it looks nice and I can imagine that ONT is a good alternative to LAX if one has to connect anyway.

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