Thanks for that. We have two teenagers with us, so I do hope we have personal on-demand video screens! Otherwise it will be a long flight!

Bev

Have flown with United to NY/LA and beyond numerous times and service isn't exceptional but certainly not the worse I've encountered-cabin crews tend to be on the "mature" side which is good as at least they know what they are doing-airline food is airline food unless you upgrade to business or first it's much the same

I can't vouch for this particular route but have flown UA dozens of times over the Atlantic and it's fine - comparable to any other. But what I would investigate with this particular flight, which is an old CO route, is the aircraft type. I suspect this is a 757 route. I would not be as keen on flying a 757 on that length of flight.

<I suspect this is a 757 route. I would not be as keen on flying a 757 on that length of flight.>

That's what I first thought when I booked my flight from Frankfurt to Newark on a UA B757 and yes UA 21 is a 757 route, too.

But it turned out to be a very pleasent flight. It is a rather small aircraft for that kind of trip, but because of that, the boarding and disembarking process is very fast and unless a couple of other flights have arrived just before you in Newark, you can clear immigration in just a few minutes. (I didn't have to wait at all)

Now, I would definitely choose a Boeing 757 transatlantic flight again.

Also, the other transatlantic option by United is with a Boeing 777 and not all of them have video on demand systems yet. As far as I know all transatlantic 757s do.

And some smaller cities are only served by United with 757s anyway.

Bev,

As mentioned, MAN-EWR is on a 757 narrowbody. Not the most spacious for an 8-9 hour flight but it does allow United (and American who fly a 757 to JFK) to operate a non-stop.

All United's international 757's have in seat video with full AVOD. There's a very good selection of movies, TV shows and documentaries, though the TV side is very much geared to the US passenger. I would also however take something to keep yourselves occupied as there's always the possibility that the odd in seat TV plays up and you could have the rotten luck of it being yours (that's the case for all airlines though).

The Economy Plus seating is extra legroom only; it's not a separate premium cabin like BA's WT+. But, that extra legroom is around 4-5", which is huge, especially for long flights. You mentioned something about "cheap" on another thread. Last time I checked the going rate for E+ was in the £70-80 range, per seat each way. With multiple people in your party that probably doesn't sound cheap, so it's your call whether to go for them. They are hugely popular, so if you do want them reserve them well in advance using the reservation system on united.com. Even if you choose not to, the regular economy seats have a 31" seat pitch which is the same as BA's economy.

Food is economy class food; definitely nothing to write home about and it could do with improvement, so you could take a snack bar or two to fill you up. United does charge for alcohol in economy, and payment is by plastic only. Best to use a **credit** card for this as we had a thread last week from someone who was charged a bank fee of £2 (if I recall correctly) for each purchase on his debit card.

I fly United a lot, and generally I find them to be a good airline, and improving. They merged with Continental, and a lot of the justified complaints last year were due to issues that came out of the full operational merger (slow and sometimes crashing reservation system, and lots of mechanical delays when they started to fly Continental aircraft into United hubs and vice versa, and the hubs didn't have enough maintenance resource for "the other airline's planes"). But those have both been addressed, and performance is good again, and imo the flight attendant service is generally excellent.

I'm curious, what type of headphone connector do they use?

TIA.

^^^^ I haven't flown on the Intl-757, but on all United Intl aircraft I've flown - including the ex Continentals - they have the 2 prong socket. But, my Bose headphones work just fine with the one prong plug. YMMV.

In the UA headphone package, there is an adapter for one prong headphones. I've just saved one of those in my Bose case and use it when necessary. Never tried just plugging directly in the one prong plug.

If I recall it correctly, they have regular one prong sockets. I flew on a United 757 from the US to Europe a few months ago and I'm pretty sure I used my iPhone headphones without a problem....