Tampa - Philadelphia - Birmingham (Columbus, MS) - Tampa

Every two years I travel to Columbus, MS for work.  It's not an easy place to get to because it's a small market served by regional third parties who probably aren't all that committed to it.  (Think Delta Connection).  So after many years of frustration trying to get in and out of the Columbus airport (GTR), I started doing Birmingham.

I flew from Philly through ATL to BHM, then back through ATL home to Tampa.

No real issues.  Delta runs as smoothly as all of the legacy carriers nowadays, probably better based on what I'm hearing.


http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2372/history/20140320/2000Z/KTPA/KATL

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2094/history/20140320/2330Z/KATL/KPHL

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL1761/history/20140323/1949Z/KPHL/KATL

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL1238/history/20140323/2320Z/KATL/KBHM

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL1442/history/20140327/2230Z/KBHM/KATL

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL1797/history/20140328/0040Z/KATL/KTPA

"Moderation"

You've heard the word.  Moderation.

You've heard its application.

Use "moderation" with:

Eating

Drinking

Exercise

Sex (who the hell said this?)

Red meat

Red wine

What's moderate air travel?  I used to fly with a guy out of Knoxville whose email signature read: "He who dies with the most miles, wins".  All I know is that he claims to have lost 6 million Delta miles in a divorce settlement.

Am I a serious, credible traveler?

Take a look at www.flightmemory.com.

It's neat, allowing you to enter your flights, dates, etc.  Once it crunches out the numbers, you can get some surprises.

I've been flying constantly since 1990, but I started using their website in 2008.  So I've got 18 years under my belt before I even started entering data.

Since 2008:

I've flown 878,122 miles

Circumnavigated the earth 35.26 times

Flown to the moon 3.676 times

Covered .0094 percent of the distance from the earth to the sun (gives you some idea of the size of our universe)

My average flight distance is 718 miles.

Since 2008, I've flown out of:

Atlanta 559 times

Tampa 315 times

Knoxville 185 times

Chicago O'Hare 107 times

Detroit 96 times

Baltimore 92 times

Chicago Midway 76 times

Salt Lake City 76 times

Las Vegas 65 times

Since 2008, I've flown:

826 segments on Delta

222 segments on Southwest

47 segments on American

107 segments on assorted other carriers

Since 2008 I've flown on:

Boeing 737s 291 times

Canadair regional jets 255 times

Boeing 757s 236 times

MD-88s 133 times

Embraer regional jets 58 times

Everything else (A319/320/340/B767/747/MD90) 141 times

I've been upgraded to first 629 times.

I've flown coach 575 times

I've flown in and out of 151 US airports.

So is this moderation?

Good night from Columbus, MS.

Savannah-Atlanta-Detroit-Tampa

All Delta on this one.  I fly so often that rarely do I get to sit back and reflect on some of the stuff I dealt with 30 years ago when I first started traveling.

But the one thing that has surely changed, at least at DL, is the concept of a frequent flyer program. You've heard all the complaints.

Making a long story short, Delta (and you can bet the others will follow) now award status and FF tickets now on the amount of $$$ you pour into their wallets.

And honestly, I have no problem with this.  Some folks over at www.flyertalk.com are very outraged.  I knew it would happen.

But please stop calling it "Sky Miles".  It has nothing to do with miles or the length of a journey.  Now I know they can't call it "Sky Dollars" but that's what it is.

I'd be willing to bet that down the road DL will change the name of this program.  It will be interesting to see what they go to.

Maybe something like "Sky Loyalty".  Who knows?

Regarding these segments, they were on time except for DTW/TPA which was 20 minutes late.  The reason?

"Late arrival of our flight attendents".  **sigh**


http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL1425/history/20140313/2015Z/KBWI/KATL

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL1320/history/20140313/2305Z/KATL/KSAV

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL1221/history/20140317/2155Z/KDTW/KTPA

Atlanta to Baltimore - Southwest

I do a lot of SWA out of Tampa, but this was the first trip I've ever done on them out of ATL.  Southwest is getting bigger in ATL, ,and I'm not including their AirTran ops in my opinions.  I could have easily done Delta out of ATL, but due to certain work issues, I wanted to burn some SWA mileage and do a freebie up here to BWI.

As is typically the case, not only were they on time but 10 minutes early into BWI.

ATL will always be a messy airport.  Too much metal in and out of there.  But my first SWA experience out of Delta country was a hit.

Savannah (via Delta) is next.

For some reason FlightAware has no track history on this segment.