To close out our long weekend in Telluride, we were headed back to Austin on United Airlines via Denver. I’ve reviewed United’s A319 in Economy before, so think of this as a mini-review but with an added twist, as I was stuck in a middle seat.
Booking
This was the final leg of our expensive, roundtrip AUS-MTJ Economy flights. While we initially were supposed to be on the afternoon flight via Houston, Mrs. ATX Jetsetter wanted to get home to the dog early so we changed to the morning flight via Denver. While she got to get home earlier, I lost our confirmed upgrades to First and ended up in an Economy middle for the ride down to Austin, but that’s love.
Pre-Flight
We had some time to kill between our flight from Montrose and our onward flight to Austin so, during our layover, we headed for the American Express Centurion Lounge. I reviewed the full lounge experience earlier in the trip.
Boarding
Our flight was departing from the far end of Concourse B, from gate B8. While the Denver airport numbers all their concourses with Gates 1-99, the numbers count out from the middle and none of the concourses extend to either end as of yet.
We arrived at our gate just as pre-boarding was beginning and hopped at the end of the line for Group 1. Out the window, I was able to catch a glimpse of the A319 that would be taking us down to Austin.
Group 1 was called after the 5+ pre-boarding groups and we headed down the jet bridge to our waiting aircraft.
United Airlines
UA 1026
DEN-AUS (Denver International – Austin-Bergstrom International)
Seat: 22E (Economy)
A319-100 (N822UA)
Scheduled: 10:20a-1:32p
Actual: 10:13a-1:13p
Seat
Just like on my last United A319 flight, a last minute flight change meant no Economy Plus seats for us. While I’m not a big guy, I am tall and these seats are a little tight in the legroom department, especially sitting in the middle.
While United is in the process of retrofitting and updating their A319/320 fleet with seatback IFE, I still haven’t found myself on one of the new planes and was stuck with the familiar, old layout.
Departure
Boarding wrapped up early and we pushed off the gate 7 minutes before our scheduled departure time. Since we left from the west end of Concourse B and were departing off of Runway 25, it was a short taxi and we were soon airborne climbing out of Denver.
In-Flight
After departure, we made a south-east turn over downtown Denver to head for Austin.
Once the seatbelt sign was turned off I headed to the rear of the aircraft to check out the lavatory, though there was nothing unique or different about it on this flight which is a good thing.
Back at my seat, Mrs. ATX Jetsetter had already fallen asleep and I decided to try and do some work. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like the tray table had been cleaned at all from the previous flight.
45 minutes into the flight, the flight attendants reached our row with the snack and beverage service. Since I was stuck in a middle seat on a Sunday morning flight, I decided to splurge and order a mimosa to accompany my coffee and mini-pretzels.
Arrival
On approach to Austin-Bergstrom International we overflew the very low Lake Travis before making our final southern turn over North Austin.
A few minutes later we landed on Runway 36R and taxied over to our arrival gate where we blocked in almost 20 minutes early.
From there, we headed out into the terminal and made our way over to the parking garage to head for the house.
Summary
There’s only so much you can say about a domestic Economy flight but, United got us to Austin early and the flight attendants were friendly. The only space for improvement here is in the cleaning between flights and, selfishly, a little bit more legroom for the Economy passengers. As a frequent United flyer I know it’s only a matter of time before I end up on another A319 but, hopefully, it has the upgraded interior.
In This Trip Report
