aCavalierInCoach
Apr 6, 05, 4:23 pm
Around the end of last year my aunt gave me the wonderful news that she would be getting married. In early January, she gave me the date (April 3rd) and the location (Gold Hill Winery in Placerville, California). I hit up United.com, and booked the trip. Bad news was that I had to be back in Cville by Monday morning for the start of my second round of midterms...
April 2nd
United Express 5520 Operated by AWAC, CRJ-200
Charlottesville to Washington Dulles
Scheduled Departure: 6:35AM
Seat: 7A
Gate: 1
Weather: Thunderstorms
I had to be out in California by Saturday afternoon to catch the family reception, but I couldn't leave Friday due to meetings and a dozen or so LD3s worth of work. All I could do was bite the bullet and take the first flight out Saturday.
Sleep was not in the cards given 6:35AM departure. At around 5:00 I tip-toed my way into AJ's room, where Kate was sharing his bed (platonic spooning only, I assure you). Kate, a crew coxswain, is accustomed to early wake-up calls for morning practice and had agreed to take me to the airport.
We got to CHO around 5:30AM. For those of you unfamiliar with CHO, it's got about a half dozen gates and as of April 4th it's served by four airlines (UA, DL, US, and most recently NW, who are restarting service originally planned to start up right after 9/11. Now, I've got two complaints about this. First, no one wants to spend two hours on a Saab 340 to Detroit. Second, I'm pretty sure the addition of 90 seats a day to the market has something to do with UAs removing the remenants of its RJ service.
AnyHoo, walked up to the United counter, and had to wait a check-in machine, both of which were occupied by two elderly couples headed to Hawaii. One look at their baggage tags told me they were in for quite a day: Charlottesville to Maui via Washington, Denver, and LA - and I thought I had it bad.
Anyway, Mr.Easy printed me two flimsy boarding passes and I proceeded through CHO's single security line to Gate 1. I still had a good half hour to burn, so I powered-up my beat up laptop and took advantage of CHO's free wireless. Sure enough, more than a few buddies who had stayed out West for school were online at this odd hour "working"; I gladly distracted them. About ten minutes before boarding, the Chair of the Politics deparmtent at U.Va. came and sat a few seats away from me, but kept silent. I was a little disappointed, as we'd been introduced (for the 3rd time) just about 12 hours earlier - I decided it lost cause. :D
Boarding commenced at 6:20 and departure was right on time, with about 30 tired bodies on board. The flight attendant joyfully announced that it was her first flight back since being furloughed six months ago, and that we shouldn't be too hard on her if she seemed like she didn't seem like she know what she was doing... because she didn't. The 18 minute trip up to Washinton was relatively uneventful, save for some nasty turbulence. Once we cleared the cloud cover it was - dare I say - majestic. We leveled out just above the cloud line and as we banked back and forth it kind of felt like we were surfing the clouds. Purdy darn cool if ya' ask me. No beverage service on the short hop, but the FA was a little bit prickley about it when someone asked for a drink of water. Her bitterness resurfaced upon arrival in Washington (think cheery, sarcastic voice):
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some connecting gate information. For those of you connecting on Flight 860 to Boston, your flight is cancelled! Hopefully you knew that before getting on this plane though, right?"
As far as I can recall, the announcement ended at that. Great.
We pulled up to the G terminal at around 7:00, and then waited the requisite 10 minutes for the UAx bagsmashers to get off their butts to guide us into the gate. I've never seen G to so empty. Took the bus from G to C/D, and and headed over to D11.
United Airlines 869, B757
Washington-Dulles to San Francisco
Scheduled Departure: 8:35AM
Seat: 19A
Gate: D11
Weather: Rain/Thunderstorms
I had about half an hour to kill before boarding, so I played Russian roulette at the burger Burger King just across the way from D11
I lost.
The 5 minute warning for boarding on the Washington-SF cooridor is always pretty amusing since it's loaded with elites and experienced fliers. The hoard starts to gather around the gate, with Seating 1s jockeying for position with each other and being silently furious at the Seating 2-4s who aren't in their place. The 1s also try not to offend too severely any First Class pax, many of whom stand proudly (read: obnoxiously) with their boarding passes sticking out of their shirt pockets, seat number outward. Right behind me in line was a fellow with green Flyertalk tags labelled "Krauss". I played dumb:
Dan:"'Scuse me sir, do you use flyertalk?"
Krauss: "Huh? Yeah. Good information."
Dan:"Well, most of the time."
Krauss: *Scornful look, returns to staring intently at the GA*
Oh well - not my lucky day for conversations, apparently.
I had booked this ticket while still a 2P, so my seating 1 stuck. Boarding was through 2L, and the flight attendant offered to hang my dress shirt and pants in First Class, and I eagerly accepted. I apparently fell asleep when I reached 19A, because by the time I had woken up it was about 8:50 and the Captain was trying to explain that something was loose in the cockpit, and that was delaying our departure. I think he was referring to a fire extinguisher, but in my sleepy haze it sounded as if it could've been anything. The first thing that came to mind was a rodent. The 757 was kind of grungy... and by that I mean really grungy. Anyway! Departed some 30 minutes late, but the schedules are plenty padded so I had no worries. The first 50 minutes or so of the flight were rocky, but I just comforted myself listening to channel 9. About 20 minutes in, I stopped staring out the window to see the passenger directly to my right in intense prayer. Yikes! I should've shown her channel 9, but I wasn't myself that morning
I ended up declining the choice of croissantwich or fruit plate which came out about an hour and a half into the flight; I just didn't have it in me. The movie was "National Treasure". The fact that I'd seen it and wasn't a fan didn't really matter, since the rest of the flight was destined for snoozeville. We came into SFO just about on time. Landing was on 28R with an Air Canada A319 landing on 28L as AC560. We pulled up to gate 86, and deplaned (slowly) through 2L. Only noteable sights in SFO were the huge groups around gates 82 and 80 waiting for flights to Honolulu and Maui respectively. From there, it was off to Placerville! yay....
April 3
The wedding was wonderful. It's always great to see family and I'm fond of my new uncle. Met a very cute girl too... unfortunately, we're now related.
United Airlines 194, A320
San Francisco to Washington-Dulles
Scheduled Departure: 10:20PM
Seat: 15A
Gate: 70
Weather: Again, thunderstorms. Alright, it's getting old now.
Left Placerville around 4:15 and didn't get to SFO until 8 -- Spring break traffic. Figures. Went to Mr.Easy who demanded to know how I would support my upgrade... Whaaaa? Well, it seems I had made a little boo boo playing around United.com. Even a full month out they weren't opening up any mileage upgrades on UA194, so I just put in for one using 500-milers, just for kicks. Unfortunately, I only had 4-500 milers left. Hmm...what to do. I ended up just telling Mr.Easy that I'd support it with paper-certificates, since I knew there wasn't a chance in hell I was getting the ugprade anyway. Mr.Easy spat out two boarding passes and a DM card. Security was busier than I'm used to for SF late night, but it was still pretty much a breeze. I headed over to gate 70, which is just to the right of security. Reluctantly bought a ceaser salad sandwich from one of the vendors across from 70. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that dinner at SFO will cost you no less than $25,000.
Checked the arrivals board and found our plane, inbound from Santa Ana/OC, was running about 15 minutes late. The last afternoon hop from SFO-IAD had been cancelled and about 30-35 standby passengers were chomping at the bit to get boarding passes. The GAs who were trying to close up delayed flights to San Diego out of 71 and Burbank out of 70 were not happy about the extra company. In any event, I needed to start studying for my exam in some 12 hours, but I just didn't have the energy (wine+work=bad, though I'm sure most of this board learned that long ago).
Boarding took forever because everyone and their mother expected to have overhead space; a true mess. When it finally looked like we were ready to go a fellow pressed the flight attendant call button to let her know his seatbelt wasn't working. There certainly weren't any more seats on the plane, and he was with his fiancee. Strangely enough, they were both headed to Charlottesville, and I'd had a class with her in the Fall. Anyway, before the mechanics arrived the situation was finally fixed, and we headed out. Departure was off of 1L, and I spent the rest of the flight in and out of sleep. Flight was completely uneventful, and I'm not sure they made any other beverage offerings besides the one just an hour in. Landing was on 1L -- and it was absolutely perfect. We pulled up to D3 about 6:35, a good 20 minutes late.
United Express 7901 Operated by Shuttle America, Saab 340B
Washington-Dulles to Charlottesville
Scheduled Departure: 9:00AM
Seat: 7D
Gate: Who cares, it's the G terminal.
Weather: Absolutely Gorgeous
I arrived at the G terminal by bus to find it almost completely deserted. A quick look at the departures board indicated nothing would be leaving until 8:20. I had about two hours before my flight, so I decided to nap on those wonderfully clean seats, despite still being in my dress white shirt and dark wool pants from the wedding. About an hour into my beauty sleep, a girl came over and woke me up:
*Pokes Dan*
"So, where are you going on your mission?"
Oh vey... I was too tired to figure out why she had asked me at the time, but it became clear soon enough. Good times.
Mornings at G are kind of a sight to see. The rampers are milling in and out of the terminal as the few early flights arrive from outstations. At around 7:50 there is a mass entry of gate agents who quickly get to typing away at their computers. Then all hell breaks loose as the terminal fills up, and not even an hour into the precious day half the flights are already looking at delays. Wunderbar!
7901 had a 20 minute delay listed, but we ended up getting out on time. I've got to say, row 7 and behind on the Saab340 have very generous legroom -- for a turboprop. With 18 passengers aboard, we made the bumpy 23 minute ride to Charlottesville. To my surprise, our cheery FA announce a full beverage service! Sad to think that my 5 hour red-eye had the same service as a 23 minute prop flight. Approach to CHO was from the North along the East side of the airport, with a 180 to land from the South. Forgot to take a look at the NW set up (just starting that day), and my trip was done.
And those 4 exams this week? How better to procrastinate than to write an unnecessarily long trip report.
Cheers,
Dan
April 2nd
United Express 5520 Operated by AWAC, CRJ-200
Charlottesville to Washington Dulles
Scheduled Departure: 6:35AM
Seat: 7A
Gate: 1
Weather: Thunderstorms
I had to be out in California by Saturday afternoon to catch the family reception, but I couldn't leave Friday due to meetings and a dozen or so LD3s worth of work. All I could do was bite the bullet and take the first flight out Saturday.
Sleep was not in the cards given 6:35AM departure. At around 5:00 I tip-toed my way into AJ's room, where Kate was sharing his bed (platonic spooning only, I assure you). Kate, a crew coxswain, is accustomed to early wake-up calls for morning practice and had agreed to take me to the airport.
We got to CHO around 5:30AM. For those of you unfamiliar with CHO, it's got about a half dozen gates and as of April 4th it's served by four airlines (UA, DL, US, and most recently NW, who are restarting service originally planned to start up right after 9/11. Now, I've got two complaints about this. First, no one wants to spend two hours on a Saab 340 to Detroit. Second, I'm pretty sure the addition of 90 seats a day to the market has something to do with UAs removing the remenants of its RJ service.
AnyHoo, walked up to the United counter, and had to wait a check-in machine, both of which were occupied by two elderly couples headed to Hawaii. One look at their baggage tags told me they were in for quite a day: Charlottesville to Maui via Washington, Denver, and LA - and I thought I had it bad.
Anyway, Mr.Easy printed me two flimsy boarding passes and I proceeded through CHO's single security line to Gate 1. I still had a good half hour to burn, so I powered-up my beat up laptop and took advantage of CHO's free wireless. Sure enough, more than a few buddies who had stayed out West for school were online at this odd hour "working"; I gladly distracted them. About ten minutes before boarding, the Chair of the Politics deparmtent at U.Va. came and sat a few seats away from me, but kept silent. I was a little disappointed, as we'd been introduced (for the 3rd time) just about 12 hours earlier - I decided it lost cause. :D
Boarding commenced at 6:20 and departure was right on time, with about 30 tired bodies on board. The flight attendant joyfully announced that it was her first flight back since being furloughed six months ago, and that we shouldn't be too hard on her if she seemed like she didn't seem like she know what she was doing... because she didn't. The 18 minute trip up to Washinton was relatively uneventful, save for some nasty turbulence. Once we cleared the cloud cover it was - dare I say - majestic. We leveled out just above the cloud line and as we banked back and forth it kind of felt like we were surfing the clouds. Purdy darn cool if ya' ask me. No beverage service on the short hop, but the FA was a little bit prickley about it when someone asked for a drink of water. Her bitterness resurfaced upon arrival in Washington (think cheery, sarcastic voice):
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some connecting gate information. For those of you connecting on Flight 860 to Boston, your flight is cancelled! Hopefully you knew that before getting on this plane though, right?"
As far as I can recall, the announcement ended at that. Great.
We pulled up to the G terminal at around 7:00, and then waited the requisite 10 minutes for the UAx bagsmashers to get off their butts to guide us into the gate. I've never seen G to so empty. Took the bus from G to C/D, and and headed over to D11.
United Airlines 869, B757
Washington-Dulles to San Francisco
Scheduled Departure: 8:35AM
Seat: 19A
Gate: D11
Weather: Rain/Thunderstorms
I had about half an hour to kill before boarding, so I played Russian roulette at the burger Burger King just across the way from D11
I lost.
The 5 minute warning for boarding on the Washington-SF cooridor is always pretty amusing since it's loaded with elites and experienced fliers. The hoard starts to gather around the gate, with Seating 1s jockeying for position with each other and being silently furious at the Seating 2-4s who aren't in their place. The 1s also try not to offend too severely any First Class pax, many of whom stand proudly (read: obnoxiously) with their boarding passes sticking out of their shirt pockets, seat number outward. Right behind me in line was a fellow with green Flyertalk tags labelled "Krauss". I played dumb:
Dan:"'Scuse me sir, do you use flyertalk?"
Krauss: "Huh? Yeah. Good information."
Dan:"Well, most of the time."
Krauss: *Scornful look, returns to staring intently at the GA*
Oh well - not my lucky day for conversations, apparently.
I had booked this ticket while still a 2P, so my seating 1 stuck. Boarding was through 2L, and the flight attendant offered to hang my dress shirt and pants in First Class, and I eagerly accepted. I apparently fell asleep when I reached 19A, because by the time I had woken up it was about 8:50 and the Captain was trying to explain that something was loose in the cockpit, and that was delaying our departure. I think he was referring to a fire extinguisher, but in my sleepy haze it sounded as if it could've been anything. The first thing that came to mind was a rodent. The 757 was kind of grungy... and by that I mean really grungy. Anyway! Departed some 30 minutes late, but the schedules are plenty padded so I had no worries. The first 50 minutes or so of the flight were rocky, but I just comforted myself listening to channel 9. About 20 minutes in, I stopped staring out the window to see the passenger directly to my right in intense prayer. Yikes! I should've shown her channel 9, but I wasn't myself that morning
I ended up declining the choice of croissantwich or fruit plate which came out about an hour and a half into the flight; I just didn't have it in me. The movie was "National Treasure". The fact that I'd seen it and wasn't a fan didn't really matter, since the rest of the flight was destined for snoozeville. We came into SFO just about on time. Landing was on 28R with an Air Canada A319 landing on 28L as AC560. We pulled up to gate 86, and deplaned (slowly) through 2L. Only noteable sights in SFO were the huge groups around gates 82 and 80 waiting for flights to Honolulu and Maui respectively. From there, it was off to Placerville! yay....
April 3
The wedding was wonderful. It's always great to see family and I'm fond of my new uncle. Met a very cute girl too... unfortunately, we're now related.
United Airlines 194, A320
San Francisco to Washington-Dulles
Scheduled Departure: 10:20PM
Seat: 15A
Gate: 70
Weather: Again, thunderstorms. Alright, it's getting old now.
Left Placerville around 4:15 and didn't get to SFO until 8 -- Spring break traffic. Figures. Went to Mr.Easy who demanded to know how I would support my upgrade... Whaaaa? Well, it seems I had made a little boo boo playing around United.com. Even a full month out they weren't opening up any mileage upgrades on UA194, so I just put in for one using 500-milers, just for kicks. Unfortunately, I only had 4-500 milers left. Hmm...what to do. I ended up just telling Mr.Easy that I'd support it with paper-certificates, since I knew there wasn't a chance in hell I was getting the ugprade anyway. Mr.Easy spat out two boarding passes and a DM card. Security was busier than I'm used to for SF late night, but it was still pretty much a breeze. I headed over to gate 70, which is just to the right of security. Reluctantly bought a ceaser salad sandwich from one of the vendors across from 70. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that dinner at SFO will cost you no less than $25,000.
Checked the arrivals board and found our plane, inbound from Santa Ana/OC, was running about 15 minutes late. The last afternoon hop from SFO-IAD had been cancelled and about 30-35 standby passengers were chomping at the bit to get boarding passes. The GAs who were trying to close up delayed flights to San Diego out of 71 and Burbank out of 70 were not happy about the extra company. In any event, I needed to start studying for my exam in some 12 hours, but I just didn't have the energy (wine+work=bad, though I'm sure most of this board learned that long ago).
Boarding took forever because everyone and their mother expected to have overhead space; a true mess. When it finally looked like we were ready to go a fellow pressed the flight attendant call button to let her know his seatbelt wasn't working. There certainly weren't any more seats on the plane, and he was with his fiancee. Strangely enough, they were both headed to Charlottesville, and I'd had a class with her in the Fall. Anyway, before the mechanics arrived the situation was finally fixed, and we headed out. Departure was off of 1L, and I spent the rest of the flight in and out of sleep. Flight was completely uneventful, and I'm not sure they made any other beverage offerings besides the one just an hour in. Landing was on 1L -- and it was absolutely perfect. We pulled up to D3 about 6:35, a good 20 minutes late.
United Express 7901 Operated by Shuttle America, Saab 340B
Washington-Dulles to Charlottesville
Scheduled Departure: 9:00AM
Seat: 7D
Gate: Who cares, it's the G terminal.
Weather: Absolutely Gorgeous
I arrived at the G terminal by bus to find it almost completely deserted. A quick look at the departures board indicated nothing would be leaving until 8:20. I had about two hours before my flight, so I decided to nap on those wonderfully clean seats, despite still being in my dress white shirt and dark wool pants from the wedding. About an hour into my beauty sleep, a girl came over and woke me up:
*Pokes Dan*
"So, where are you going on your mission?"
Oh vey... I was too tired to figure out why she had asked me at the time, but it became clear soon enough. Good times.
Mornings at G are kind of a sight to see. The rampers are milling in and out of the terminal as the few early flights arrive from outstations. At around 7:50 there is a mass entry of gate agents who quickly get to typing away at their computers. Then all hell breaks loose as the terminal fills up, and not even an hour into the precious day half the flights are already looking at delays. Wunderbar!
7901 had a 20 minute delay listed, but we ended up getting out on time. I've got to say, row 7 and behind on the Saab340 have very generous legroom -- for a turboprop. With 18 passengers aboard, we made the bumpy 23 minute ride to Charlottesville. To my surprise, our cheery FA announce a full beverage service! Sad to think that my 5 hour red-eye had the same service as a 23 minute prop flight. Approach to CHO was from the North along the East side of the airport, with a 180 to land from the South. Forgot to take a look at the NW set up (just starting that day), and my trip was done.
And those 4 exams this week? How better to procrastinate than to write an unnecessarily long trip report.
Cheers,
Dan