Just a couple of weeks after our trip to Tuscany, Mrs. ATX Jetsetter and I are off on another adventure. This time, it’s off to Telluride for a long weekend to celebrate the wedding of two of our DFW based friends. For the first leg of our trip, I’m back on a familiar airline and route with United up to Denver.
Booking
In order to get to Telluride, we had a few different options. Telluride has an airport with scheduled service to Denver via Denver Air Connection but the pricing was absurd. For most people Montrose, which is roughly an hour and a half from Telluride, is your best bet. United, American and Southwest all had flights on the dates we needed to travel. The connections weren’t great on Southwest and American so we looked towards United.
The pricing was expensive at over $800 per-person round trip in Economy, but thankfully I had an $1100 United flight credit that was expiring which made purchasing our tickets a bit more palatable. We booked our roundtrip directly with United via Denver on the outbound and Houston on the return.
Pre-Flight
We arrived at ABIA at 7:30a and parked in the long term parking garage. With no bags to check and boarding passes in hand, we headed straight for the security checkpoint.
Austin has been notorious for security delays, especially for morning flights, but the lines seemed decent and were moving quicker than I anticipated as it seemed the TSA Agents were getting more comfortable with the new scanners.
We were through security by 7:50a and headed straight for the gate. Our Boeing 737-900 had arrived in Austin the night before and was waiting for us at Gate 29.
Boarding
By the time we arrived at the gate the Group 1 line already had 20+ passengers in it so we filed in at the end. After preboards, Global Services and Premier 1K members, we were invited to board.
United Airlines
UA 595
AUS-DEN (Austin-Bergstrom International – Denver International)
Seat: 20A (Economy)
B737-900 (N36472)
Scheduled: 8:41a-10:00a
Actual: 8:39a-9:51a
United 737s haven’t had consistency as the airline works to retrofit all of their aircraft with new interiors, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this plane was equipped with seatback IFE as well as live DirecTV.
Leg room was also great as we had seats in the exit row. It also helped that we went out with an empty middle seat between Mrs. ATX Jetsetter and I.
Departure
We pushed off the gate a few minutes early, next to a pair of United A320s, and taxied out to Runway 18R. We had to wait a few minutes for some arriving traffic and by 8:50a we were rolling down the runway on our way to Denver.
We took off to the south before making a right turn to head northwest towards Denver. As we climbed out of Austin, we overflew Lake Travis which was looking low due to the lack of rainfall we’ve seen over the last few months.
In Flight
Once we reached our cruising altitude I pulled out my laptop and connected to the Wi-Fi, which United offers for $8 to MileagePlus members, to get a little work done.
The flight attendants reached our row about 15 minutes later and I just had a cup of coffee (Yes I drink coffee on airplanes).
About an hour into the flight I headed to the lavatory which was clean but not in the best shape. The wall panels were cracking and peeling and appeared to be in need to a little TLC.
Back at my seat, I passed the remainder of the flight watching the live TV and looking out the window as we approached Denver.
Arrival
During our descent, we flew to the west of the airport and made a U-Turn over the suburb of Brighton. We briefly lined up for the runway before executing a go-around which was a first for me, that I know of, in all my years of flying.
We landed on 16R and taxied over to gate B19. Once we deplaned, we headed off to the train and the American Express Centurion Lounge in the C Gates.
Summary
Like so many of my recent United flights, this was was absolutely fine. We left on time, arrived early, and had a friendly crew which is about all you can ask for on a short domestic flight in Economy.
In This Trip Report
