I would like to see or better yet fly on the PSA plane. Does anyone know what routes this plane is on? Is there a way to track flight schedules by tail number? Thanks!

saw it in PIT 2 weeks ago and this past week it was running the Shuttle flights. It actually looks good in person. Looking forward for the AL & PI planes next.


http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=1027027&size=L&width=1024&height=695&sok=JURER%20%20%28nveyvar%20YVXR%20%27HF%20Nvejnlf %25%27%20BE%20nveyvar%20YVXR%20%27ZrgebWrg%20%28HF %20Nvejnlf%29%25%27%20BE%20nveyvar%20YVXR%20%27Zrg ebWrg%20%28HFNve%20%28HF%20Nvejnlf%29%29%25%27%29% 20%20beqre%20ol%20cubgb_vq%20QRFP&photo_nr=20&prev_id=1027134&next_id=1026823

You can track by tail number at http://www.flightaware.com . Not sure if you can use that to predict where the plane will be.

It was operating the LGA BOS 7.00pm shuttle last Thursday. Concur that it looks great. Also it appears the the interior is also thouroughly cleaned in conjunction with the paint job ^

Not that I am complaining, but would it not make more sense to send it out west. In addition there was a new livery jet at LGA on Thursday also. It did not look like an RJ, however I can't be sure as I only got a partial view

I'd like to see it fly out west too. I mean, that's where PSA lived for chrissake!! Problem is (if it's a problem) the plane is a former "old" US aircraft, so not sure if that factors into them using it out here other than to fly transcons.

I'd like to see it fly out west too. I mean, that's where PSA lived for chrissake!! Problem is (if it's a problem) the plane is a former "old" US aircraft, so not sure if that factors into them using it out here other than to fly transcons.



OLD?

it's an AIRBUS.....they are not that "old" in the US east side of the house!! A friend that's a supervisor for US said this plane came from the east. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what he said.

I saw it parked at a gate at DCA last week around 3 pm. It could have been a shuttle flight to BOS if the gates haven't changed lately.

This plane was orange and yellow (reeked of circa 1971) if that's PSA's colors.

Saw it at LGA twice yesterday, once around 10:00 a.m. as we arrived and then again at 5:00 as we were taxiing out for departure. No clue where it was off to in the morning or where it came from that evening tho.

It's a nicer looking airplane in person, as is the cheesey smiley face on the nose.

Hi gang. After shamelessly lurking for some time, I finally signed up.

As for the aircraft routing question......

At it's most rudimentary, a/c routing is a function of marketing, maintenance, and crew scheduling. Marketing decides what aircraft they'd like to use for a given market, obviously limited by the fleet types we have and the capabilities of each - i.e.- no 737's on transcons.

Given marketing's desires, maintenance tries to balance the flying time of a given fleet type. From their perspective, the ideal would be that all the aircraft within a fleet type accumulate flight time equally, since maintenance visits are often based on that. They don't want a number of 767's, for example, all coming due for heavy maintenance visits at the same time.

Crew sked looks at putting crews on the planes - if marketing wants to use an A321 for the 7am departure from stumpwater to PHL, will there be a crew in place legal to fly it - both pilot's qualified on the Airbus and the right number of F/A's.

As you can imagine, this is something of a give & take process before everyone is satisfied.

To top it all off, there's the last minute complications - mechanical problems, weather, etc - that throw a monkey wrench into all those carefully laid plans.

So knowing where a specific aircraft will be tomorrow, much less next week or next month, is next to impossible except for the 330's and 767's - during the summer season, most of them will pass thru PHL in the afternoon.

Jim

Hi gang. After shamelessly lurking for some time, I finally signed up.



Welcome to the sunny side of the street, BoeingBoy. You've definitely spent too much time on the "dark side". ;) ^

Hi gang. After shamelessly lurking for some time, I finally signed up.

Jim



Great to see you here Jim.


Jay

BoeingBoy

Welcome to FlyerTalk! Excellent first post - I look forward to reading many more...

-Chris

BoeingBoy!!! Nice to see you over here! Many on these boards will value your input!

At about 8 AM. Took a picture with my camera phone - not very clear but if someone wants it, e-mail or PM me.

Another hearty welcome Jim. Your knowledge and insight are most appreciated.

OLD?

it's an AIRBUS.....they are not that "old" in the US east side of the house!! A friend that's a supervisor for US said this plane came from the east. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what he said.


It was definitely an ex usairways east plane. Although it was cleaned of pen marks:), it had the old us airways interior and layout. IIRC probaly delivered circa 1999-2000.

Thanks for the warm welcome, folks.....

As an anecdotal example of the problem of determining where a specific aircraft will be in the future, we crews have a list of the flights we'll fly from the time we first leave our base till we get back to go home - usually 4 days for me.

Among the info is an indicator showing if we will be changing planes or not at any of the stops during a day. It's rare to go thru a 4-day "trip" (as we call it) without changing planes at least once when we weren't supposed to - and usually on what should be a through flight, it seems. So not only do we crewmembers have an unscheduled plane change, but so do the through passengers who thought they were just making an intermediate stop.

Of course, those of us flying the 737 see more of these unscheduled changes than the folks doing the long hauls - some of those are one leg (segment for you "civilians") and off to the hotel or home.

Jim

It was definitely an ex usairways east plane. Although it was cleaned of pen marks:), it had the old us airways interior and layout. IIRC probaly delivered circa 1999-2000.

All of the heritage planes (except HP, of course) are supposed to come from the East fleet. Originally they had planned to use West aircraft, due to the more immediate need for repainting, but there was outcry among West employees. They were saying that since those previous airlines only constituted East, the planes should come from East.... Which for PSA is a pity, since that 319 will only make it to the West coast sporadically I imagine.

OLD?

it's an AIRBUS.....they are not that "old" in the US east side of the house!! A friend that's a supervisor for US said this plane came from the east. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what he said.

"Old" and in the OLD USAirways, not HP. I know the plane is new.

"Old" and in the OLD USAirways, not HP. I know the plane is new.




AAAHHHH?!?!

"old" US regime, but in the "new" US regime, using a "newer" US airbus instead of an "older" HP airbus.

Now I got it!!

;) :p

Welcome Jim!

Awesome insight. We could use it here at times!

I also saw the PSA plane at LGA this past Monday, operating I believe as the Boston Shuttle. Since the Boston shuttle aircraft then becomes the BOS->DCA aircraft, then becomes the DCA->LGA aircraft (I think--that order might be backwards, but the point is that the shuttle planes all interchange with one another), it seems likely that the plane would be stuck in that loop unless something should happen to bring it elsewhere.

Well I just have unbelievable luck. Today was my first trip since starting this thread. While I was walking to my gate in the C terminal at CLT and I look to the left and see a tail that says PSA parked over at the D terminal. I couldn't believe it. So I went over to the D terminal to get a look at it. When I got over there I couldn’t really see the plane due to the gate location and the international corridors. So I asked the GA if I could go into the international corridor to look at the plane. She happily let me in and I got to see the plane for the first time. :D FYI, it was headed down to Mexico City.

Great to see you over here, Jim. Welcome! :)

I flew on it as the DCA-LGA shuttle last week at 8 am.

It was parked in front of the hangar at DCA tonight at 8:30pm.

You can track by tail number at http://www.flightaware.com . Not sure if you can use that to predict where the plane will be.

Unfortunately, you cannot track commercial airliners by aircraft registration on flightaware, only by airline and flight number...only non-scheduled flights (such as private GA flights on IFR, bizjet charters, corporate jet flights, etc.)can be tracked using registrations...this weakness is the only thing I don't like about flightaware

This, sadly, makes tracking the PSA airplane impossible on flightaware :(