Flight Log of United Airlines Flight 345 from Washington Dulles to Honolulu

by admin

Mid January 2023, my friends and I made a trip to Hawaii. This post would be the ~~first~~zeroth day of the trip when we flew United Airlines from Washington Dulles to Honolulu, one of the longest domestic flights in the US.

Overlooking Honolulu

Ticketing

I felt there was a particular time in late 2022 when my Instagram feed was inundated with pictures from Hawaii. Roughly the same time, I was asked on more than one occasion by separate friends of mine whether I liked to join them on a trip to Hawaii. So I thought, this must be it, I guessed I was heading to Hawaii.

After some coordination among friends, we picked the middle of January 2023 for this trip, before the start of the spring semester but after the Christmas/New Year crowds have left. Technically, that’s the low season of Hawaii when prices of everything should be reasonable, albeit in a relative sense as the locals believed Hawaii was experiencing overtourism.
In particular, that meant United Airlines had a fair amount of (standard) award seats available in the Hawaii market, and that included the direct flight from Washington Dulles to Honolulu. Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines, a Star Alliance partner of United, only charges 7500 miles for one-way domestic awards in coach. And since Hawaii is part of the United States, the 4817-mile flight from Washington Dulles to Honolulu only cost me 7500 Turkish Airlines miles per person, which I transferred from Capital One.
I have to say the ticketing process was more involved than I anticipated. Part of that being I had to coordinate the itinerary with my different friends’ schedule, part of that being the ticketing system was “down for maintenance” during some of my calls. In addition the itineraries that Turkish Airlines could ticket were a subset of the “X” class itineraries that would show up in United Airlines web search. I prefer not to go into too much detail by saying it’s more than a hassle.

But anyway, the ticketing part was settled in mid-November 2022, and on the morning of January 15, 2023, my friends and I were dropped off at Dulles Airport.

The Flight

There was a small hiccup at checkin, as the printer of the kiosk that I used was jammed. As a result, I finished on the touchscreen and headed directly to the bag drop, without picking up the boarding pass. The lady at the bag drop insisted I “go back and return with the boarding pass”. So I went back to the kiosk, managed to unjam the printer, and went through piles of paper to find the one(s) with my name, and returned. I asked the lady to dispose of the remainder of the boarding passes, which she was at the very least startled. 😐

The flight was scheduled to depart at 8:30am, which gave us just enough time to visit the few lounges in Dulles that opened at 7:30am, for that I picked the Turkish Airlines lounge. The breakfast was reasonable, with a few hot plates such as scrambled eggs.
We left the lounge at 7:45am, just as the rising sun was lighting up the interior of Concourse A/B of Dulles, a far cry to the third world United concourse that we were heading to.
After a bus ride, we boarded the flight at 8:07am, when boarding was almost completed. Upon boarding, blankets were placed on seats, which I used for lumbar support along the way.
I switched seats with some fellow passengers to sit with my friends. The seat pockets were not clean for both seats. 😣

Breakfast at Turkish Airlines lounge.
One of the better lounges in the states.
Dulles Airport Concourse B
The morning sun through the roof windows, shedding a warm layer of gold onto the building.
Onboard Flight to Honolulu
Elongated shadows from the rising winter sun.
United Airlines B764 (N67052)
Off to Houston. United only has 16 767-400 in its fleet, and I was sitting next to another one.

United Airlines 345
Washington Dulles, VA (IAD) – Honolulu, HI (HNL)
Boeing B767-400 (N69063)
Seat 43L
Scheduled Departure – 8:30am
Actual Departure – 8:53am
Scheduled Arrival – 2:16pm
Actual Arrival – 2:17pm
10 hours and 24 minutes
Here’s GPS tracking:

Here’s a video of the takeoff:

Once airborne, it’s mostly clear till the midwestern states. It turned undercast once we entered Wyoming, then through Utah and California. The clouds briefly broke out over Nevada. In short, I didn’t get to see any of the interesting landscapes below.

Blue Ridge Mountains
Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in the middle.
Sky Meadows State Park
Columbus Airport
Fields in Indiana
Fields in Central Nebraska
Now covered in snow.
Job Peak Wilderness
In Nevada.
Pacific Ocean

As for service, which United Airlines probably wasn’t known for, there was a meager breakfast, some snacks, and that’s basically it. We had a proper breakfast in the lounge, and I brought with me some snacks, so I didn’t have to starve through this 10+ hour flight.

Breakfast Service

Mediocre, at best. In comparison, my friend joined us a few days later flying Delta from Atlanta, and he described Delta’s food service as “actually pretty good”.
Snacks
Served while crossing into California.
Bathroom onboard United B764
Just over halfway into the flight, could certainly use better cleaning.

Along the way, there was a constant headwind of 50-100 kmh over the midwestern states. This increased to up to 280 kmh while crossing San Francisco Bay. It was a very bumpy ride over the Pacific Ocean upon leaving California, “the most bumpy in years” as my friend recalled.
One more thing to note, this was my first time flying the Boeing 767-400ER, which maintained 816 Pascal cabin pressure (~1790m pressure altitude) at FL36 (~11000m elevation), much better than the narrowbodies that I flew on.

Between naps and video clips, frankly I didn’t find this 10+hr flight that excruciating. Fast forward to its end, broken clouds were hanging low over Oahu. Probably due to traffic, we had a rather long downwind segment.

Overlooking Oahu
The eastern shore of Oahu Island.
Overlooking Honolulu
Capital Historic District
Honolulu Airport Concourse G
Mostly used by United Airlines.
Southwest B738 before Honolulu Skyline

And here’s a video of the landing:

First Night in Honolulu

After landing in Honolulu, we grabbed a rental car, and headed for the hotel in Waikiki. Along the way, we stopped at a Walmart in downtown Honolulu and stocked up some supplies. Its parking validation system was broken (so it’s free parking for all), and the number of homeless people around the building was alarming. Certainly not the best side of Hawaii.

Hotel: Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach

I had two C4 free night awards with Hyatt, one expiring in February and one in July. The one expiring in February, I really didn’t have other good usage for it (it turned out to be the same for the one expiring in July). Despite this being only a C3 Hyatt property, it turned out to be a perfect place to offload these awards for a two-night stay.
The other option was Hyatt Centric Waikiki Beach, a C4 Hyatt property. Being a Hyatt Globalist, I didn’t care about resort fees, and Hyatt Centric offered self-parking which was better than the valet-only Hyatt Place. However, my friend liked the room type and breakfast of Hyatt Place better, so we decided on it.
As a final note, both properties required a certain minimum stay length when redeeming for free nights, which can be circumvented by using the “Pay My Way” feature (plus making a call to the Hyatt reservation center). The minimum length was like a week for Hyatt Centric. 😮

Upon arrival, the receptionist at Hyatt Place went through a very lengthy introduction of various amenities (no wonder there’s a line at checkin). In addition, there were only two elevators for the tower that we stayed at, which meant a lengthy wait (maybe not as bad as checkin) throughout the day. But apart from that, I didn’t have any issues with this hotel.

Hotel Room
Pretty spacious, even for Hyatt Place standard.

Dinner and Stroll

After that, we headed out for dinner, for which my friend picked Marugame Udon, a popular Japanese ramen restaurant with decent prices (by Hawaiian standards). Its popularity meant there was a huge line that literally wrapped around the block, by which time, due to the lack of service on the United Airlines flight, I was literally starving.💀 Nonetheless, I consoled myself that the line was growing longer.😏
In the end, we joined the line just past 5pm, and waited for a total of 15 minutes.