Las Vegas to Chicago - 30 Pax on a 733

Back in Chicago, 20 mins early, again thanks to SWA. I've noticed this early evening departure (leaves at 5:50 pm) is very light, tonight only 30 people.

And that makes it nice. You get the whole row to yourself. Thanks to Bose for providing me peace from the two engineers in front of me who talked about micrometer spacing for two straight hours. Guys, you are off work now, leave it alone.

On to BWI again Sunday night, SWA as usual, as they are so reliable.

As February draws to a close, I've flown 14789 miles in two months. And that is actually below average for me. March will be much higher. One of the trips is to Hawaii!

Turkish Air 737-800 Crash at Amsterdam

I've only been writing a blog for 2 months now, yet already 2 crashes (3 if you bring in Continental's incident at Denver in December). What bothers me about Turkish is that this is a B738 which is state of the art, flying into AMS which is a leading hub facility in Europe. And apparently the weather was good.

It takes a while for the facts to come out. Although this is a Turkish and Dutch issue, I am confident that both governments will get to the bottom of the issue. Not sure the NTSB will be brought in, but it would be nice.

Again, I don't ever think about this stuff when I'm in the air for some reason. It just never crosses my mind.

A pic of taken at the scene is attached.

ORD to Las Vegas - That Old Delta Magic Returns!

I was afraid I was going to fill this blog with routine posts which might make you think that legacy airlines have it together.

Well, today, out at ORD, it all came crashing down.

Involuntary downgrade to coach - This is always fun for a high mileage guy. When my boarding pass rolled out of the printer at home this morning I saw the coded abbreviation you don't want to see if you have a first class upgrade; the term EQP. This is airline jargon for "we could not fly the route with the type of aircraft that we sold it as." And typically, that means substituting a single cabin airplane. And that is exactly what happened. To their credit, the people at the Crown Room wanted to give me drink coupons. I have too much of a head cold to drink it away. They knew I was upset.

What gets me is that I would have never booked this flight on DL if I knew a single cabin was gonna make up the trip. Why? Because coach at SWA is certainly nicer that being sqeezed into any kind of Canadair regional jet. I have heard that the CRJ concept stemmed from a design for a business jet. I know Bombardier makes business jets and I'm sure they are nice, but they day they started masquerading as airplanes for commercial use, well. . .

So, a total of 10 of us got this downgrade. The lady beside me, was less composed than I was. It is this kind of bush league nonsesne that makes me look at third parties carriers (in this case Skywest) as simply unprofessional.

Weight and balance issue causes delay - At least the captain was honest. After the door was closed and the jetway pulled back, we just sat. Here we go again. I see the door open and the strairs come down and the American captain who was seated in the jumpseat glumly leaving. And the captain grabs the mic and unceremoniously says "OK, if you are a non-rev, I'm throwing you off". Nice tact?

Now we have to wait for the ramp guys to find all these bags and off load them. It seems the weight and balance issued was caused by the equipment change. It makes you wonder if they can't figure this stuff out before you close the door.

So, on that high note, I'm in Las Vegas for the next 5 days. Southwest out of here back to MDW, so no chaos/EQP/balance issues.

Cincy to ORD - Defying the Odds (again)

I must change the name of this blog. If a person were flying with me in 2009 you would think that all flights are on time. Of course it is not that simple; but today, as luck would have it, the work finished early. I hustled out to CVG and noticed that in 45 minutes a Delta CRJ9 was on time to ORD. And the snow that I had been dreading had already hit; about 4 inches.

However the kiosk allowed me to change to this flight, it accepted my upgrade request, and when I got to the gate, not only had the upgrade cleared but the flight was ready to board. My only complaint was that three people also cleared who celebrated terribly in the cabin. Thank god I had the Bose headphones on and Santana playing. (I can't stand listening to loud inane dumb comments in first.) To these three folks, please, act like you have done this before!

So, I'm sitting here in Chicago watching the snow fall. Off to Las Vegas tomorrow via SLC. The travel just keeps on and on.

Knoxville to Cincinnati - Delta Again

As always, Delta metal out of Knoxville is not Delta, but rather third party commuters, in this case their vassal known as "Freedom Air".

Although I have always looked at "regional" airlines as bush league when it comes to customer service, give them a good weather day like today and they will get you there, in this case, 10 minutes early. The worst thing was the encounter we had with wake turbulence when we were on final for 18L. This is a subject I will address at some point, it is never something I enjoy.

When I checked in for this flight today, I notice Delta had placed a link to the following on their web site:

Northwest Airlines Flight #2, traveling from Manila to Narita on February 20, experienced severe turbulence upon approach to the Narita airport. The plane, a Boeing 747-400 with 408 passengers and 14 crew members on board, landed safely. Approximately 45 people were taken to a local hospital for medical care and five people remain hospitalized. There were no fatal injuries.

I suppose when you buy another legacy carrier, you double the issues, and in this case, the issue of controlling the PR and the spin (helping to reduce lawsuits).

Tomorrow will be a terrible day, flying from CVG up to ORD. They are calling for heavy snow tonight and tomorrow in Chicago. I am preparing myself to possibly never make it to Chicago. On to Vegas Sunday.

Just livin' the dream!

Late addition: Just settled into the room here at CVG and see where the airport police had to haul a guy off an RJ today for starting a fight. Too many drinks it appears. Here is the link: www.wcpo.com/news/local/story...2Cj-cqBkw.cspx

Sick on the Road - Never Fun

I've been traveling constantly since 1990. And there are no sick days in my job; in consulting you have to show up for the job. With all the money at stake with the travel costs, you better show up no matter how you feel.

In the 19 years I've traveled, I've been sick 3 times but showed up to work anyway. But yesterday, here in Knoxville, I thought I was going to die. I got hit with a stomach virus at about 6 AM and had to be in front of the customer at 8 AM. I won't go into details, you can just imagine.

And when it was over, all I could do was fall in a bed and go to sleep. Which I did, for 16 hours. Then it was time to do it all over again today. I felt better, but it feels like I've been hit by a freight train.

On to Cincinnati tomorrow. I might drive it, just not sure yet.

BWI to Knoxville - Delta - Bringing Back Bad Memories

Well, tonight we were late out of ATL on the connection up to TYS. I arrived only 30 minutes late but that was due to the fact that we zipped out of the gate to the taxiway and when we got to the end of runway 26L we were number one for takeoff.

But the delay brought back so many flashbacks of when I used to fly Delta constantly. I am so used to Southwest now; their serious commitment to on time performance, that I just can't believe how Delta can accept being so average out of ATL.

The following happened:

Gate agent announces delay. She says it's just delayed, no time of departure mentioned. She then leaves gate and goes to the jetway, and stays.

She eventually comes back and says that there will be a flight, but she is unsure of the departure. I am convinced she is telling the truth.

I look at the window and see a super tug pulling a CRJ 900 up to the gate. Now we have to wait for the crew to board.

As we finally board, this gate agent forgets to hand out the pink valet baggage tags. Since I'm the first pax down the jetway, the flight attendent stops me at the door, as she should, saying I gotta valet check the bag. Of course by this time there are 30 others in the jetway and some of us have to back out of the door of the airplane to drop these bags off. As you can imagine, this was not fun.

Inside the hull several of us remark that we have no claim checks for the valet bags and we are concerned about this. Of course the flight attendent can do nothing.

The door is close to closing and the gate agent comes down to do the seat count that ATL is so famous for. It takes her three times walking through the cabin to get it right.

Finally the door closes and the captain comes on and says that he is sorry about the delay, and in a rare moment of truth, admits that they have no excuse for the delay at all. And he states he will not attempt to make up an excuse.

When I got to TYS, I got online and learned that this trip was operated by Pinnacle Airlines which for years has been a Northwest third party commuter. Now they are part of Delta.

I have not had my stress level rise much in the last year as I have flown almost exclusively SWA. What few times I have flown DL was through CVG or SLC where they don't have nearly the problems of their famous "WorldPort" in ATL.

And yet this one trip, after all that time, elevated my blood pressure to old familiar high levels.

The details will still matter to me, and a big legacy outfit like Delta really seems to struggle with them. Southwest makes them look like they are running amateur hour.