The confluence of a pleasure trip out to Boston to see my girlfriend, an engineering conference in Pittsburgh and a meeting at (The) Ohio State University this past week brought me the opportunity of flying on three different carriers throughout the East and Midwest. Since my native carrier, Northwest was offering some truly hideous fares on my desired routes, I decided to give each alliance, Star Alliance, Skyteam and Oneworld a try on my three legs to see how the industry was faring while I was away on NW. Along my journey I kept the following diary:
Leg 1: DTW-NYC-BOS – Delta Airlines
Detroit – New York – CRJ900 Operated by Comair
Boarding and Gate Area
I don’t get over to the B/C concourse at Detroit’s McNamara often enough. While they do have a killer A&W Rootbeer stand, most Northwest flights depart out of the A terminal so I have little reason to visit the other half of the building. It’s nice being on this side once in a while.
Due to what seemed to be some last minute booking and jockeying by the gate agent, we started boarding ten minutes late, but since the aircraft was so small, the twenty minutes was plenty of time to board the entire aircraft.
As usual, the typical gate lice nested around the boarding area, but they quickly cleared out once first and “elite” passengers boarded.
Predeparture
Settling into 9D, I was treated to narrow leather seats, some overhead soul music and a nice view of the larger MD-80 next to me that I would have much, much rather been on. I nestled into my leather seat and greeted the voracious software consultant to my left, and the deer tick in between the window panes on my right.
During the preflight security speech, the young woman next to me noticed the gentlemen in the back of first class messing with the flight attendant – I would later find out that the two were from the hiphop group, Yung Joc with his Swagg Team.
Inflight
The nice thing about flying east in the afternoon is that you get the sun shining over your shoulder. Delta’s CRJ was fairly new, clean and quiet and the young woman next to me kept me busy trying to figure out what “Swagg Team” actually meant, so the ride was quite pleasant.
Once we got close to cruising altitude two flight attendants came back through the aircraft serving (free) soda and peanuts while sandwiches were offered at 7$ apiece. I decided to wait to eat in JFK, which, I would soon learn would be a mistake.
We landed a few minutes early, and even with the long taxi of JFK airport I still got into the the terminal in good time. What a pleasant flight.
New York – Boston – CRJ 900 Operated by Comair
Pre departure
I now know why my New York based girlfriend was always so stressed out when leaving from The City on a Friday evening. On entering Delta’s terminal at JFK, I was greeted by a throbbing mass of people mashing around for space and gates.
Most of the small CRJ aircraft that I was bouncing between this weekend board from ground gates at JFK, and the way Delta arranges them is that they all filter into one outdoor walkway that links to one gate inside of the terminal. So at any particular time you can have several flights departing or arriving from one doorway (in my case, 25) at the end of the terminal.
And if one of those is delayed, like my flight from New York to Boston (due to a late inbound aircraft – flight congestion), the crowd around the single door begins to pile up with stray passengers.
I can’t blame Delta for the congestion – any other solution would require many more gates — but the throng of people in the terminal was truly stifling. After I learned that my flight was delayed by forty minutes I walked over to Wendys to try to grab a burger. With the line well out the front facade though, I wasn’t willing to wait in line. Instead I camped out under a cart of courtesy phones and checked in on the blog from my phone.
Finally, fifty minutes past departure time we made it onto the plane and waited while the ground crew patiently loaded the luggage…. putting us another ten minutes behind. Fortunately, the pilot came on the PA and noted that the flight to Boston was a short 37 minutes, so by the time we got airborne we were only twenty minutes late.
Inflight
Had I not known that my aircraft had just arrived to take us to Boston, I could have arrived and departed out of the exact same plane. Cleanliness, leather seats and operation were effectively the same, although instead of sitting in 9D in this CRJ I was now sitting in the exit row, 12A, with plenty of leg room to spare.
Since the flight was so short, the cabin crew didn’t have much time to offer snacks and drinks, so I was mostly left alone to read Devil May Care and reflect. I didn’t even bother firing up my computer for the 12 minutes that electronics were allowed.
Once we cleared the massive flight delay known as New York City, things went smoothly and we landed in Boston without event.
Leg 2: BOS – PIT – US Airways – Embraer 170
Predeparture
My Sunday evening flight from Boston departed from terminal 2, a slightly older terminal than the normal T5 that I usually fly out of. Despite the floors being heavily worn I found the terminal pleasant and because of the overhead music, almost jovial.
Almost an hour before departure the gate agent briefly came over the loudspeaker to mention something about luggage but almost immediately cut out – and continued talking into her dead microphone for a few minutes. She then made another announcement that never even reached the PA.
Curious, I sauntered over to the gate and mentioned that the PA wasn’t working.
“I know. I’m not management,” the gate agent replied.
“Can you tell me what you said?” I asked.
“I made an announcement about luggage,” she replied “We’re boarding early.”
I smiled and left. She seemed agitated. True to her word, we boarded about ten minutes early and obediently filed onto the Embraer. When I got back to 10D I noticed that my seat had gum worn into the leather. Being my assigned seat, however, I had not choice but to sit in it, and I knew it wasn’t worth my time to complain.
Most of the preflight revolved around passengers attempting to fit giant, giant bags into the smaller overhead compartments (hint: if the wheels on your 400$ Tumi are larger than dinner saucers, you’re going to have trouble), and having a medium sized backpack I was unfortunately asked to shove it under my seat to make room. Now, with gum all over my thigh and nowhere to stretch my legs I too was starting to get agitated.
Inflight
Needless to say, the rest of the flight went fairly smoothly. About twenty minutes after departure one of the two flight attendants wandered down the aisle asking if anyone wanted to purchase a bevvy or snack (US Airways no longer offers free snacks or drinks on their flights) – I didn’t see anyone bite – so they returned to their stations and didn’t bother us for the rest of the journey. Twice, near the end, they came through the cabin and collected refuse, but that was about it.
I guess that makes less congestion in the aisle if the flight attendants aren’t milling around with beverage carts, but I’m starting to wonder how much revenue US Airways is earning from paid snacks and drinks.
Once again we were on time arriving into Pittsburgh, and on transferring to the land side terminal I was out of the airport fairly quickly.
Leg 3: PIT – ORD — CMH American Airlines — Embraer Regional Jet operated by American Eagle
Pittsburgh – Chicago
Preflight
Pittsburgh’s airport is surprisingly large, sprawling and pleasant (more on that later). After circling the grounds about 12 times trying to figure out the maze of roads, I still found myself two hours early so beached up to a gate, plugged in and logged into the free wireless to get some work done. The boarding area was a little dated, but clean and pleasant, and before I knew it we were being called to board the evening flight.
My seat on this ERJ was 2A, which I forgot didn’t have an overhead compartment above it, so after a second of fiddling with my backpack under the seat the flight attendant took pity on me and told me that “she would take care of it.” After everyone had boarded, she took my bag and put it in the crew closet, which I thought was a very gracious thing to do. Later, she crammed two other people’s bags into other compartments as well.
Unfortunately, due to weather and air traffic control restrictions, we sat in the penalty box next to the runway for nearly an hour waiting for a departure slot. As I dozed, I thought about picking up beers with Gadling’s Scott Carmichael when I reached O’hare, and it seemed like for ever before we took off.
Inflight
Rather than accomplish the 28 things that I need to do on the flight, I elected to keep napping to save energy for the evening. The nice flight attendant stopped by to offer free beverages and 3$ snacks, but half asleep I waved her away.
It seemed like I had been napping for ever by the time we punched back through the clouds to a rainy Chicago airport – but since my phone wasn’t on I didn’t know for sure. By the time I flipped it on after landing I was surprised to find that we were over an hour late – this meant my layover had been reduced from 1:40 to :10. Hopefully they hadn’t already closed the gate.
Chicago to Columbus – ERJ Operated by American Eagle
Preflight
It’s been a while since I’ve experienced the mayhem of O’hare first hand, and entering the terminal my expectations were fairly on par. As one of the largest airports in the country, O’hare moves a lot of people and it’s difficult to keep people orderly and happy en masse – especially if there are weather delays.
My walk from G18 to G1A was short, and on the way I discovered that my original flight scheduled to depart at 8:10 was pushed back to 9:25 – but that an earlier flight leaving at 7:10 was also delayed to 8:10 – and it departed from the same gate. So when I showed up at the gate I asked the agent if I could standby. No problem. Five minutes later I was on the aircraft, for a grand total of about seven minutes spent in the airport. I guess I’ll see O’hare and Scott later.
Inflight
After a nice nap on my earlier flight I was ready to get some work done, and from 15C with no seatmate in this ERJ, I had the opportunity to do that. Despite the fact that legroom was minuscule, I was still able to open my Thinkpad X31 and get a fair amount of blogging done, which is really all anyone can ask for on an aircraft this size.
It took a while to get out of the Great Lakes weather and the flight was turbulent – even passing through 20,000 feet I could still see the strobe lighting up rain showers all around the aircraft.
As expected, the flight attendant showed up about 30 minutes into the flight, which effectively left me about 20 minutes to slam a cran-apple juice and get ready for touchdown. But I was just happy to be on the ground again. Finally, arriving only 10 minutes after my original flight was supposed to land, we made it into Columbus.
Summary
It’s difficult to have many excellent experiences when flying around the country in regional jets. Leg room is always restricted, service is truncated and the noisy flights are often too short to get the full experience. If I had to choose my favorite leg though, I would pick my Detroit – New York flight on Delta. Clean seats, a clean plane, free drinks and an on-time arrival are all you can ask for in today’s economy — in fact, with the direction that airlines are heading in, I would say that getting those four things on any flights these days is pretty fantastic.
As I sit behind my bedroom desk at home though, it sure is nice being able to relax and stretch out. It’ll be awhile until I book another regional flight again.