UMTravels

Yet another 4am wakeup call – this is getting old. But, The Island Hopper only runs twice a week, and there schedule is their schedule.

What is The Island Hopper? It’s a famous old Continental Airlines route through the South Pacific. When United bought Continental, the continued the route (and I wear, using the same old planes).

There are some unique features of this route from Wikipedia:

The flight operates three times weekly as United Flight 155 from Guam to Honolulu, and Flight 154 from Honolulu to Guam.^[9] Unlike other flights, a mechanic and extra set of spare parts is carried on board the Boeing 737-800.^[2] Other peculiarities include having four pilots working on each flight. Two pilots would fly the leg from Honolulu to Majuro and the other pair fly the remaining legs.^[9] Flight attendants also receive crew duty time exemption from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Since many runways in the islands are short, fire trucks are usually staffed and lined up beside the runway ready to cool the brakes and tires after each landing. The front rows of the economy class can be collapsed to accommodate stretchers in case of medevac.

The full article is here: Island Hopper – Wikipedia

And here we go – imagine that, a LOUNGE starts the trip!

And then onto the plane:

Saw one of ANA’s Hawaii-specific A380’s parked at HNL. They have three, just for the Honolulu route.

So, one of the unique things about the 737-800 that they use on this route is seriously comfortable seats for the reserve pilots:

They recline so far that they have to block off seats 2A and 2C.

And a little food:

That will be the last real food until the final leg of the flight. Snacks with each short hop.

So, here are some pictures from the various stops….

And then, there is my favorite photo from this whole long (15 hour) flight day:

And their view:

And finally, onto Guam, my stop for two nights. But first I have to get my bags after making it through customs…

There were well over 100 coolers on this flight. Sadly, it’s United which doesn’t have a 20-minute bag guaranteed. This was more like an hour plus.

What is in all those coolers? TUNA. Apparently, Chuuk and Pohmpei harvest 10% of the world’s tuna.

Headed to the hotel for a couple of nights using Wyndham rewards points!

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