New York
Finally, the whole reason for this quick trip to New York: flying to all 7 of United Airline's hubs in the continental United States in a single day, aka the legendary hub run first done by Jeb Brooks. This trip was planned out by Alex, who had attempted the hub run before and failed due to flight delays, as well as legendary mileage runner Carl Brothers.
Over the course of the day, more than 30 United frequent fliers would participate in the hub run, which started at about 4:45am for most of us, meeting at gate C104 at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), and would not end until after 11:00pm at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
Spotted the night before was "United 7 Hub Run" decorations put up by United's director of customer service at EWR, Jordan Bykowsky, and sure enough, at 4:45am not only was Jordarn there to greet us, so were Mallory and Olivia from United's social media team, who would (somewhat unexpectedly) be accompanying us on the entire hub run. Frequent fliers in the group had mentioned this to United enough over the planning stages that had heard people from United's social media team would be flying with us, but we had minimal details til the night before/morning of.
It ended up being quite an experience, with a level of support from United we would never have dreamed of when planning the trip. From the celebratory atmosphere, decorations, bags of snacks, food, and film crew first thing in the morning at EWR, to additional bags of snacks at the first stop at Dulles International Airport (IAD), to the quick dash into Chicago O'Hare's famous tunnels for an even quicker photo at ORD, it was intense. Captain Mano Katsompenakis had a bit of recognition for each one of us in the form of business cards and trading cards on boarding, and when we checked, we also saw our connecting gates had been shuffled at IAD, ORD, IAH, and DEN-- craaaaaaazy.
We had a bit of a longer connection at IAH, where one of the Global Services passengers on the hub run arranged a BMW pickup and tour of the tarmac for Katy as a special birthday gift-- meanwhile the rest of us stepped out of gate C6 and found the extremely short walk to gate C8 to be lined with United Airlines' Premium Services team at IAH having lined the entire walk with pun-filled signs supporting our hub run, and when the tarmac tour returned, a cake and entire gate full of people singing happy birthday for Katy.
The second Airbus A321neo of the day, under the command of Captain Mike and with flight attendant/blogger Scott up front, deposited us at Denver International Airport, where the team was smaller than IAH (but larger than ORD), but no less enthusiastic. As most of us were in economy the entire day, the longest layover of the day also meant time to visit the recently-remodeled United Club for some hot food, which was much welcomed. Mallory and Olivia were also able to do a few more interviews in the club before we all had to run off to the next flight. Group members also joined and departed as their schedules allowed, with a particular set of flight delays from LAX-EWR the night before that meant a few group members (Warren, Bob, Cindy) ended up skipping the first leg and meeting the group at IAD. Kathie ended at SFO, Scott joined at SFO, I forget who else only did part of the run-- but was great to have everyone, no matter how long they could join.
Captain Mark and FO Christopher handled us with aplomb as we boarded their old 757-300 for DEN-SFO, and with the larger airplane, a bunch of the group got into the first class cabin for the short flight (while a few of us got photos in the cockpit), and in another example of the unexpected and next-level support we got from United, we bypassed one runway with probably a dozen aircraft waiting to take off, and were instead allowed to use a totally empty runway for an immediate departure (!!!!).
Arrival at San Francisco International Airport's terminal 3 was similar to ORD, with no time for any fanfare, but we were still met by United's Premium Services team, and hustled from gate F15 to gate E13 in time for our final flight of the day to Los Angeles International Airport. Captain Jason was clearly into it as well, along with FA Tinesha (sp?), cramming the entire group (30 of us?) into the first class cabin of his 737-900ER for the craziest group photo of the entire trip before departure. Way cool.
Was a quick flight from SFO to LAX, then a bit of an odd wait as our gate was busy on arrival... but that was because Olivia and Mallory had arranged a full on celebration for the completion of the Hub Run at gate 80, with probably every on-duty employee at LAX they could spare, decorations, more swag, donuts, medals (!), and the film crew from the morning at EWR made their second appearance-- having taken a much more sane routing to LAX from EWR. Made for one hell of a long day, but also a crazy experience I am glad I participated in. Maybe we didn't need the support of United to make this happen, but I think I can speak for all of the participants that we absolutely recognize and appreciate all the support we got from United to make sure this happened. It's not an exaggeration to say it was worth every moment, and probably one we could not pull off with the same vibe anytime soon!
Flight schedule:
Sat 7 Jun 6:00am - 7:19am EWR-IAD, UA 1366, Boeing 737-800, N33286, 212 miles
Sat 7 Jun 8:25am - 9:38am IAD-ORD, UA 2440, Airbus A321neo, N14502, 588 miles
Sat 7 Jun 10:35am - 1:29pm ORD-IAH, UA 2483, Boeing 737 MAX 9, N37525, 925 miles
Sat 7 Jun 2:50pm - 4:40pm IAH-DEN, UA 241, Airbus A321neo, N14534, 862 miles
Sat 7 Jun 5:59pm - 7:45pm DEN-SFO, UA 1007, Boeing 757-300, N57857, 968 miles
Sat 7 Jun 9:00pm - 10:32pm SFO-LAX, UA 2409, Boeing 737-900ER, N67845, 337 miles
= 3,892 flight miles, 19 hours 9 minutes from first take-off to final touch-down, (19hr 53min if you count gate to gate).
Actual hub run flight map courtesy of mduell on FlyerTalk.
UA 7 Hub Run on the web, on Flyertalk, on Johnnyjet.
