Baton Rouge Back to Tampa - Sweating It

My training customer in BTR decided that I had to end our work by 10 AM.  This meant that my DL ticket to depart at 540 PM had to be changed, and I did, scheduled to depart BTR at 1240.  The reason I'm sweating it, is that as soon as the inbound pulled into BTR, the gate announces a maintenance delay. After scaring me to death, without any notice, suddenly we board 25 minutes late.

Which of course puts pressure on my 55 minute connection in ATL.  We arrived at D 36 and the connection is at B 36 (of course both ends of both buildings).

I get to B 36, a huge line boarding.  Arrogantly I whip around to the Sky Priority line and out pops the upgrade!

Wow, I am a happy guy, because if you make these last minute flight changes, you can kiss first goodbye.

Settle in to seat 7B, 2 Woodfords in route, and then I'm back on my island eating seafood just six hours after leaving BTR.  Thank you Boeing and yes, thank you Delta!

Philadelphia and Newark next week!

I kind of trashed the BTR airport in the previous post, and I'd like to be more objective.  It's not all that bad, really.  They have a nice, but very dark, business center (reminds me of a funeral parlor).

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/ASQ5070/history/20120921/1734Z/KBTR/KATL

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2208/history/20120921/2008Z/KATL/KTPA

Tampa to Baton Rouge - DL through ATL

I didn't fly out of TPA til 5:15 today so I had a full day of work first.  And I'm still getting used to the "island life" as it poured the rain on and off all day.  At one point I noticed that TPA was not allowing departures due to weather.

So I was not surprised that the DL 752 left TPA 40 minutes late.  But I had 90 in ATL and easily made the ASA CRJ7 to BTR.  The upgrades cleared, and as always, that's nice.

I'm surprised at how shabby the airport is here in BTR.  I come here every couple of years and they surely need a new terminal.  It's old and dated.

The worst thing today was that upon our arrival in BTR, even though it was 9 pm local, both DL gates were occupied by RJs trying to get back to ATL.  Apparently the weather messed it all up, but not us thank goodness.  So we had to wait about 15 minutes, but the ASA captain kept us informed.

Hanging out here for 3 days, and only have to work until 12 noon each day.  Guess I'll get a couple of good naps this week!

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2172/history/20120918/2115Z/KTPA/KATL

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/ASQ5081/history/20120919/0031Z/KATL/KBTR

Baltimore back to Tampa - Even Easier on a Wednesday

One thing about working at airports: when the job is done, I just get somebody to run me over to the passenger terminal and it's time to go.

And in this case,  a perfectly timed 5:20 departure to TPA, nonstop on Southwest.

And we got here 15 minutes early!  In fact, the sun was still up!  Gosh, I love it!

The worst problem this week was that I was quite disappointed in the Hilton Garden Inn I stayed in.  I've never been in a breakfast buffet where you weren't given full size plates, but rather, what I think is a dessert plate.  Then one day the housekeeping folks didn't show up until 5 pm.  That's kinda late for a place that markets itself as a hotel for business professionals.  Also, ESPN did not work on the cable for a while, LOL!

Stay on my island for 6 days!  Next stop, Baton Rouge next week.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA271/history/20120912/2120Z/KBWI/KTPA

Tampa - Baltimore - Easy

It is easy on Southwest when weather is good.  Well, I should say, I am learning that TPA can get hit with all kinds of tropical downpours, and we had them most of the day.

The most aggravating thing was leaving the case to my Bose headphones on a seat at the gate in TPA.  Dumb.  Not sure what the procedure for that is, since the airlines don't own the gates, but I'll probably end up ordering another.  At least it wasn't the headphones AND the mp3 player (done that twice already, see older posts!)

Back to TPA in 3 days.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA261/history/20120909/1945Z/KTPA/KBWI

San Francisco - Tampa - Weekend!

Flew two days ago from SFO to TPA via ATL.  Delta. It all worked beautifully.  Very nice.  Upgrades cleared and arrived at TPA 3 minutes early.  That's on a Friday which means over to Treasure Island, get on the shorts, drinks at Willy's.  Dinner at Sea Hag's.  This island life suits me fine.

I'm at the TPA airport now, about to head out to Baltimore.  Southwest to BWI, the inbound is already 15 minutes early which means we'll get out of here ontime.  Into BWI at 6, plenty of time to catch the later NFL games.

Life is good.

And I just love the TPA airport.  I remember the shenanigans at ORD when I lived there.  Nothing free.  Internet here is free, fast and it works all the time!

Plus, and I hate to rub it in, the Gulf of Mexico is a helluva lot better body of water than Lake Michigan.  OK, guess I still have to trash Chicago every now and then.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL1580/history/20120907/1315Z/KSFO/KATL

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2208/history/20120907/2008Z/KATL/KTPA

On the flight out of ATL we took some big deviations due to the big cells you see on the track.

102,337 miles year to date.  Adding more today.

3 days in BWI then back to the island!

Indy to San Francisco via Minneapolis

Yes it is a weird routing.  But if you want to fly on a legacy carrier, you have to accept their unorthodox "hub and spoke" routings.

I left work in Indy, jumped the in the Avis and headed to IND.  The second I booted up the phone I got the dreaded "Missed call from Delta Airlines" alert.

I checked the voice mail, and found that my flight up to MSP was an astounding 2 hours and 20 minutes late, cutting my connection time to about 30 minutes.

You can't solve these problems behind the wheel of a rental car, so as soon as I turned it in, I went inside the terminal and noticed that in 30 minutes another delayed IND-MSP flight was going to leave.  And I busted my butt getting to the TSA checkpoint.  Thank you Pre!  I cleared security in one minute at most and found the gate.

The agent was very accommodating and gave me a first class seat on this delayed flight.  I was surprised to get that, most of the time if you change a segment, you simply won't get the upgrade as you are too close to the departure time.

Thank you sir.

So this part of the post is written from the very nice DL Sky Club at the juncture point in MSP where all the concourses come together.

Well, it's not all perfect.  I have yet to clear the upgrade window on the MSP-SFO segment and it looks like I might not clear.  I did grab an aisle seat in the new "economy comfort" section.  Those seats aren't bad at all.  Hope the guys up front tonight enjoy their beverages.

Look at the big line of weather just south of IND; I was lucky that we weren't in a real mess.

More to come.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL964/history/20120905/1945Z/KIND/KMSP

South San Francisco:

The Delta 738 flew us out here in 3:38.  And considering that we did not land until 1130 PM local time, that makes for a long day.  When I got to the hotel here, I thought about how long had I been wearing my shoes?  The answer was approximately 20 hours.  It was a very long day.  Fortunately the airplane had in flight entertainment, TV, movies etc.  I watched the second half of the Dallas-New York Giants game, then fell asleep with the headphones on.

Here for less than 24 hours, then all the way back to TPA.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2209/history/20120906/0230Z/KMSP/KSFO

Tampa - Indy - Nasty week Ahead

Easy flight to IND from TPA on Southwest.  Arrived 20 minutes early.  Not much to gripe about there.  But I gotta gripe about something and in this case it's Avis who managed to back my car so tightly against a cement wall that you gotta start it, pull it into the traffic ally, then stop it just to get the bag thrown into the trunk.

Petty, I know.

Hilton certainly put me into what is probably the biggest hotel room I've ever been in since I started traveling.  It's a huge suite, practically bigger than my place back on beautiful Treasure Island.

This is going to be a rough, short week.  Out of here tomorrow, Delta to MSP, on to SFO.  A loooong night in the air, not arriving into SFO until 1130 pm their time (230 am body time).  Work there just ONE DAY then all the way back to TPA on Friday, arriving perfectly in time for happy hour .

I'll spend more time flying in the next 72 hours than anything else.

What a mess Lufthansa apparently has, flight attendant strike in Europe.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA1976/history/20120904/1935Z/KTPA/KIND