Chicago to Newark - Using all the Luck on One Trip

Back in the air this week, first to Newark. Anyone who has flown much will tell you that ORD and EWR are two of the most delayed places in the country, and flights between the two points, in either direction, can be chaos.

Last summer I had a trip to EWR that was six hours late due to storms in the Chicago area.

So when I book this trip I always say, "be calm, don't let it get to you". So when it started to rain late last night in Chicago, I said, "don't get upset". When I got up and saw all the fog at ORD, again, I resigned myself to a big delay. Then I looked at www.fly.faa.gov/ois and saw that the average delay out of ORD was 121 minutes and building.

I kept checking the Continental web site to see if a delay was tacked on and it was not. I did not want to sit out at ORD all day, I would have rather waited it out at home, but no delay was mentioned.

Then I noticed something that Continental does that no other airline does. Their web site tells you the lanes that the actual ship has flown. And in this case, my flight came into EWR from DFW on time. And it departed EWR to come to ORD only 6 minutes late. It arrived at ORD 20 minutes late which means we left ORD 20 minutes late. Normally, I would have celebrated this, but incredibly enough we arrived at EWR 15 minutes early! Now some people will blame that on "padding" the schedule (building in delay times). I don't care! The psychology of arriving early is wonderful. The week is off to a good start, but the same rain that Chicago is having today is headed east and will be in the New York area tomorrow and I am scheduled to fly back to ORD tomorrow night. I'm gonna try to get an earlier flight. You may not be impressed but I have seen delays between ORD and EWR that were excessive and I am totally shocked that we were early. I'm attaching a pic taken out the window of Continental's President's Club at ORD; you can see how foggy things were in Chicago (and no, I never fly US Air if I can help it).

Kalamazoo, Michigan

Again, no images of the route of flight to upload, I drove here from Chicago. The worst part of the trip is just getting out of Chicago, the rest of it is easy.

Again, I am amazed at how less stressful a trip can be when no flying is involved. It's back to Chicago tomorrow, and then two more days off. Then it's off to Newark, the delay capital of America, and on to Austin.

Los Angeles/Salt Lake/Chicago

Going from the west coast to the east, or even the midwest is never that pleasant as you lose 2-3 hours in the air. The airlines, in an attempt to maximize flight efficiency, schedule east bound flights very early in the morning or late at night. I quit doing the late night red eye stuff years ago, but getting up at 4 am like I did today is just another form of misery. But it's the lesser of the two evils.

The flight to SLC was again uneventful. This is a big concession for me to make, but it appears that after years of not caring, Delta is starting to take on time performance seriously.

And the connecting MD90 to ORD was on time as well.

Next week is a mess. Looks like I have to get to Kalamazoo but then I'm not sure what happens next.

In the meantime, it's Easter in Chicago. And spring is still not here.

Qantas Airbus A380 at LAX Tonight

On our taxi in tonight at LAX we passed right beside the QF A380 that is pictured.

And as luck had it, we had to stop right beside it for about 3 mins. It was dark and I thought about grabbing the camera, but the flash would have come right back into the camera.

This is a recent pic, taken at Sydney on March 29.

In any event, this is the first time I've ever seen this thing and the size will leave you speechless.

Memphis to Los Angeles - Delta/ Northwest

I flew to LAX tonight on NW metal. I really like the A319 in front. Get row 1 when you can. Yes, it's a bulkhead but where the bulkhead intersects the floor you will find about a 6 inch indentation which really does allow you to stretch.

Flying in this DL/NW merger is interesting. Tonight the equipment was in NW livery but the flight crews wore DL uniforms. The DL magazine was in the seats. The Dasani (Coke Atlanta) water was present.

I visited the new "World Club" in MEM. I have always thought that DL Crown Rooms were inferior to NW's clubs. NW has free wireless and many more choices for food, such as fruit. DL just gives out trail mix.

I surely hope that DL does not "enhance" these former NW clubs. I'd be willing to bet the bean counters on Virginia Avenue in ATL will not allow this to go on.

Again, NW elites have to be dying inside, watching their status melt due to DL "enhancements".

I hope the clubs stay the same.

By the way, the flight left the gate 3 minutes early. This won't continue much longer once the DL mentality saturates the system.

Knoxville/Atlanta/Memphis

Normally I would not fly from TYS to MEM via ATL. I'd do Northwest direct. But I need Delta miles, so I decided to take a chance and tack on the extra segment.

Then last night, the National Weather Service starts predicting dire weather in the southeast.

Well, lucky again. We arrive in the "World Port" ontime and took a 10 minute delay to MEM, but I'm not gonna get upset over that.

The dumbing of America continues; the person who had seat 4A beside me thought that was a coach seat and walked all the way to the back of the aircraft looking for row 4.

I'm in another Hampton Inn for the next 3 days, and already I've been subjected to some dumbass who came to the front desk in her pajamas wanting to know how to order a pizza.

On to Los Angeles next Wednesday.

January-February-March Flying

2009 is off to a busy start. According to FlightMemory, I've already flown 30.427 miles in three months, averaging slightly over 10,000 miles a month. The trip to Hawaii inflated that total, but it's a lot of time in jets (74.21 hours according to the website).

Here's what the map looks like so far