Trip Reports - A Skyteam Visit to the USA: 17 Days, 16 Flights, 5 Airlines, 12 Lounges (w/ pics)

The full title was A Skyteam Visit to the USA: 17 Days, 16 Flights, 5 Airlines, 12 Lounges, 19,791 mi all in First/Business (with pictures), but it wouldn’t all fit. I’m posting my first Trip Report in nearly two years… hope you enjoy it!

It’s never a good idea to start a trip report when you’re well into your journey. But here I am in the MCO Crown Room Club, about halfway through my journey, and I’ve decided to start writing something.

I suspect like I am like many FlyerTalkers who frequent the trip report forum. I love to read other people’s trip reports, and I always set out with the intentions of writing my own, but for some reason procrastination and the endless demands that come with my job always seem to tip the scale over the dedication required to actually sit down and put pen to paper—or, more precisely, fingers to keyboard—and document the damn thing. The more I travel, the more I tip my hat to folks like Seat 2A, Loose Cannon, moondog, carfield, KiwiFlyer, Jacob_m, B747-437B, jpatokal, and the many others who post the trip reports that I can go back and read over and over again.

I’m a real amateur at Trip Reports, and I haven’t done one in two years, though I’ve started a fair few. Here are the two that I remember doing:

MH MAN-KUL-AKL and return in F/C (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=550034)

Annual Leave: CO/NW MAN-EWR-CLT-MSP-ANC-MSP-IND-LAS-EWR-MAN, all sorts of classes (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=595332)

Right, so it all started with a little fare searching this spring. As an expat living in England, I’m allowed one trip to the USA per year in economy. In the past, I have either bought economy and upgraded it, or bought business and paid the difference out of my own pocket.

Mrs. TrayflowinUK, who loves to travel 75% as much as I do (this means she loves to travel about 200% more than the typical person), sort of put the brakes on our wild escapades when the little one arrived last October. I figured this was probably the end of our flight-intensive travelling days—indeed, we took a driving holiday to France this spring—but when Baby TrayflowInUK reached the age of five or six months, Mrs. T got the bug again. Or more precisely, she became more receptive to travelling great distances. Her only rule was that we couldn’t travel more than two segments in any day, and that if she felt at the end of the trip that all we did was fly on planes, we wouldn’t be doing this again!

And so it came to pass that I found a fare on NW from my home airport (HUY) to Seattle (SEA) for $2019++. In Business. This was a routing fare but also had an MPM. But for some reason, the MPM wasn’t being applied. Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth? And, besides a drive last year from Vancouver to SeaTac Airport to catch a cheap NW flight to MSP, I haven’t been to Washington since my college days.

And so, after a lot of hours on ITA, complete with the requisite ear-bashing (“Absent father, absent father… tsk tsk tsk, why don’t you play with the baby instead of searching for fares on that stupid computer!!!”) I was able to route it with ten segments. A fellow FlyerTalker and an excellent travel agent, mrcimino1, was able to ticket this for us.

In addition, I took an extended stopover on the return and nested a few work trips in there, as I don’t get back the US very often. After taking advantage of some creative routings and nestings (see the MCO layover below) and I wound up with the following itinerary:

Seg Tkt P/F Day Route AL Aircraft
--- ---- --- ----- ------- -- -----------------------
01 TKT1 C/C DAY01 HUY-AMS KL Fokker 70
02 TKT1 C/C DAY01 AMS-ORD KL 747-400 Combi
03 TKT1 C/C DAY02 ORD-MSP NW DC-9-50
04 TKT1 C/F DAY03 MSP-IAH NW Embraer 175
05 TKT1 C/F DAY03 IAH-SEA CO 737-800
06 TKT1 C/F DAY08 SEA-LAX AS 737-400
07 TKT1 C/F DAY08 LAX-MSP NW 757-300
08 TKT1 Y/F DAY09 MSP-ATL NW CRJ-900
09 TKT2 Y/F DAY09 ATL-EWR CO 737-500
10 TKT2 Y/F DAY11 EWR-MCO CO 757-200 Int’l Config
11 TKT3 Y/F DAY11 MCO-IND NW DC-9-30
12 TKT3 Y/F DAY14 IND-MSP NW DC-9-50
13 TKT3 Y/F DAY14 MSP-CLT NW A319
14 TKT3 Y/F DAY16 CLT-ATL DL MD-88 => CRJ-900, OpUp!
15 TKT1 C/C DAY16 ATL-AMS KL A330-200
16 TKT1 C/C DAY17 AMS-HUY KL Fokker 70 => Fokker 100
For simplicity’s sake, I’ve not included actual fare codes, just F, C, and Y for First, Business and Economy. E.g., Y/F indicates that I paid for Economy but flew in First.

The Mrs. and baby would follow me as far as segment 7, and then we’d do our own things: I had a week of business and the girls had a week of family visits.

We bought three seats, as there was a 25% discount for the infant in a car seat, so the little one travelled in style as well. After taxes, the tickets were significantly more money (nearly $2700 for the adults), and since I only can expense the economy fare, I was significantly out of pocket. But why not! You gotta live sometimes :).

So here’s my 19791-mi flight routing courtesy of the Great Circle Mapper. (http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=HUY-AMS-ORD-MSP-IAH-SEA-LAX-MSP-ATL-EWR-MCO-IND-MSP-CLT-ATL-AMS-HUY&RANGE=&PATH-COLOR=red&PATH-UNITS=mi&PATH-MINIMUM=&SPEED-GROUND=&SPEED-UNITS=kts&RANGE-STYLE=best&RANGE-COLOR=navy&MAP-STYLE=)

In the end, I wound up with 16 segments (with ten in paid First/Business and six in economy), 14 different aircraft types, and 13 different airports visited with a total of 29,399 EQMs earned. However, by the end of the trip, all segments were flown in the premium cabin.

We arrived at HUY and parked our car in long-term parking. Now, HUY is one of my favourite airports in the whole wide world, and long-term parking is one of those reasons. The different between long-term and short-term is about 50 metres. Max. The drawback is they’re both expensive to park in. It cost me £91 ($180) to park for this trip.

There is never a big security queue, and the airport has perhaps one of the world’s smallest lounges but is fairly well-stocked with snacks and booze. So, you don’t have to arrive early, but it doesn’t hurt.

We arrived about 75 minutes before departure, waited nicely in queue to check in, and were greeted with… problems.

This was foreshadowed the previous night when I’d attempted to OLCI us on www.klmuk.com. I had no problem checking myself in, but check-in could not be completed on the girls’ reservation. Since I had a few minutes’ spare time, I rang the KLM e-service desk, where I got a relatively green recruit who said the issue centred around Baby TrayflowInUK’s passport data. I kept being put on hold, until an eternity later she came back on the line and said that she was able to fix the problem with the help of a supervisor, our seats were confirmed, we were checked in, just needed to get boarding cards at HUY. Total phone call was 28 minutes.

The poor Servisair ladies were having trouble with—wait for it—Baby T’s passport pre-clearance data. It took 45 minutes and the involvement of the station duty manager to sort this out at the check-in desk. It turns out that KLM’s system creates two records when you travel with an infant (i.e., less than 2 yrs old) on a child ticket. Some jiggery-pokery was required to fool the system into giving us boarding passes, but we could only get them for this segment. By the time we’d received our boarding cards, the flight was already boarding. No lounge for us.

KLM F70s are arranged in an AC-DEF pattern. We were originally booked in Row 2 DEF, but when we checked in we found we were in 3ACD. It turns out that on this particular F70, the oxygen masks suitable for infants are in the A seats and nowhere else. No biggie I guess.

Tyipcal and uneventful takeoff from HUY; back-taxi, U-turn and full throttle ahead. Up, up and away, over the Lincolnshire Wolds, the North Sea, passing The Wash out the right hand side of the aircraft, and then a typical landing on the Polderbaan (18R) followed by a 15-minute/7 km taxi to the Fokker Farm via the bridge over the A4 snelweg.

I used to get angry when they first built the Polderbaan (somewhere between Schiphol and Brussels) and I was unfortunate enough to land there (which seemed to be more often than not), but over the years I’ve mellowed. I’ve given up allowing thoughts to stew in my head about what a monumental waste of money it was, how a 7- to 11-km taxi is more environmentally-friendly than using the Zwanenburgbaan, etc. Now I just chill and go with the flow. What can you do? Getting mad at runways isn’t a sign of a healthy mental state.

The little one didn’t make a peep on this flight; she’s normally pretty good, and I believe this was already her 16th flight.

Anyway, we actually made an on-time arrival, ploughed into the transfer bus to D-pier and were in the lounge (52 this time) within 30 minutes of touchdown, including 10 minutes of baby-changing time and 10 minutes at the transfer desk getting onward boarding cards: they actually issued the next two segments although one was >24 hrs out.

I have gone from liking the KLM Crown Lounges to hating them to tolerating them to liking them again. The food offerings are greatly improved and they just don’t seem as crowded as they once did. Maybe this is me being desensitised? I don’t know, but I actually look forward to visiting the Crown Lounges again. I’m eagerly anticipating the completion of the expansion work to Lounge 52, which looks like it will extend over the top of F pier.

View from Crown Lounge 52
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The baby was being a bit fussy and so we headed down to the baby care lounge.

Although we’d travelled with the little one through Schiphol before, we’d never ventured down to the baby care lounge. I don’t even remember now how we knew it existed, but we just did. And let me tell you, it’s facilities like this that confirm in my mind that Schiphol is the one of the world’s greatest airports.

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The baby care area is totally free of charge. It has cribs/cots curtained off with seating in a funky circular arrangement to give a little privacy while letting the little one feed, sleep or play. It’s got dim lighting and mood music. It’s got deep wash basins for bathing baby. It’s got microwaves for heating up formula. And, for the 45 minutes we were there, it was EMPTY! How can this be?

We headed down to Gate E19 as late as possible. If you’ve travelled through AMS, or for that matter, many non-US airports, you’ll find that security is often at the gate area. Although there are now separate queues for WBC and elite pax, I still don’t see the point of queuing up and rushing through security only to wait in the holding pen.

So we took some seats within view of the security area, waited until the crowd had dissipated, and strolled up to be questioned. After passing 20 questions (yay, we’re not evildoers) and the security checkpoint, we boarded the 747-400 Combi and made our way to the upper deck.

Mrs. T had never flown on the upper deck of a 744—she’d done it on the Northwest 747-200s (former F seats with the 80-inch pitch), but normally we sit lower-deck on the 744s—and so we booked ourselves in 72HJ and 73J, with me sitting behind the baby. Nice to be able to guarantee no one will recline into your space.

http://www.klm.com/travel/gb_en/travel_information/on_board/seating_plans/747-400Combi.htm

In the weeks before our trip, I had been keenly following the progress of the 744 refit programme on the KL forum (special thanks to HB-IWC and others), and was glad to see a post find that KL had finished outfitting the 747 fleet with the new seats as well as AVOD. So, this was to be my first trip in the new KL business class seats. Many have panned these seats, and I can’t weigh in with a full opinion yet. I never tried reclining fully, but was comfortable enough watching several films along the way, and the 8-hour crossing seemed to fly by in comparison with other westbound TATLs.

Our Plane, PH-BFY “City of Johannesburg”
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View out the window prior to pushback.
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The 747-400 Combi, City of Johannesburg, pushed back shortly after we boarded, and just as I was revelling in amazement at yet another on-time departure (this would make seven in a row for me on KL), the captain came on with an announcement. I can understand enough Dutch to figure out if it’s good news or not before they switch to the English announcement, and I could tell that it wasn’t good news: No 1 Engine wouldn’t start.

And of course, at this time, a thunderstorm rolled into Schiphol.
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And to top it all off, they needed our gate for an incoming flight.

So, we taxied around to another gate, but couldn’t pull in until the thunderstorm passed. Once we were directed onto stand, KLM Maintenance came onboard, and changed a card or two. Well, that’s what they said, I’m sure it was more complex than that. We pushed back again and the engine spooled up with no problems.

At this point, two seats on the upper deck magically got filled with friends of the flight crew. Surprise surprise surprise. The guy in 72A wasn’t too thrilled, since he figured he had it made with two seats to himself once we pushed back.

Unfortunately, during this two hour delay, we were without aircon most of the time, and it was just a bit stuffy on board. It must have been 35ºC at one point. Ugh.

After a brief taxi and a Kaagbaan (Rwy 24) takeoff, we made a beeline for our North Atlantic crossing track. I really like northern crossings, and today I was not to be disappointed. We made for the Isle of Lewis before crossing over Greenland amid cloudless skies and breathtaking scenery. I’ve crossed over Greenland several times before and been treated to amazing scenery over the eastern coast, but the western coast always seemed to be cloud-covered, or maybe by then I usually have quit watching and shut the windows shades again. Today it was the opposite, as there was a cloudbank covering the fjords of the eastern coast but we were treated to astounding views of western Greenland. I never knew there were such large expanses of bare rock, neither mountain nor fjord really.

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Again, Baby TrayflowInUK was pretty quiet the whole flight. The FAs were as good as gold, coming up to Row 72 to play with the baby, bring up some toys and laying out several blankets in the bulkhead floor area to make a little play area for her. I was very impressed.

The service on the flight was somewhere between “good” and “excellent”, and KL really pulled their reputation up a few notches in
my book. That said, there were a few very minor glitches.

Early in the flight, I handed my little KLM house leaflet to the Purser and asked her to make sure we got three new houses that we didn’t already have, to bring our total to 29 unique houses. This was passed to the lead FA in our section (who was dead friendly); near the end of the flight, before she came around with the trays of houses, she came by with two houses for us. Whilst showing my appreciation for her effort, I made a subtle protest that the baby should get one as a paying customer. Difficult for me to do, as I wanted to tell her that, on balance, I was well impressed that they made the special effort. But, she either ignored me or didn’t understand me. But then when she came around with the tray, the Mrs. was able to snag a house so we got our allotment.

At dessert time, I asked if I could have both cheese and ice cream; as expected, I was told that she’d see what was left. Fair enough, I expected this. But, no follow up. As it happened, I was full enough, but still…

Speaking of food, today’s flight was a great improvement over our last TATL KL flight (AMS-YVR last May). A smoked salmon appetiser preceeded a main course of roasted chicken in chilli-ginger sauce, lamb entrecôte with rosemary sauce (I had this… very good!) or red mullet tandoori. Again, I’ve flown business on KL at least once per year since 2000, and the meals have never been fantastically amazing, but I feel they’ve at least returned to the levels they were a few years ago.

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Arrival in ORD was about 90 minutes late; we sped through immigration despite being the last business pax off the plane (first row of upper deck, plus a baby, plus having to take the elevator down to the ground floor from the jetway level, plus not being in any particular hurry to rush through immigration only to wait for our bags.

Baggage reclaim was a typical ORD joke, with Carousel 4 being signed as KL612 but the baggage actually arriving at an adjacent carousel.

Now, you may recall that when I booked this trip, the Mrs. gave me one rule: no more than two flights in a day.

This sort of conflicted with my goals of staying off NW wherever possible (NW apologists be damned, NW WBC is pretty dire in my book!) and maximising my mileage.

So we booked the ORD layover expecting to have to put up with an airport shuttle somewhere.

But Priceline.com came to the rescue. We bid $50 for a 4* at O’Hare and sure enough, we got the Hilton O’Har e which is located at the terminals. So all we had to do was take the AirTrain (or whatever they call it at ORD) to our hotel.

Of course, navigating this with a pushchair was a bit of a challenge. The ORD Skytrain is not designed with rolling stock in mind. Between Terminal 5 and our hotel room, we rode on no less than seven elevators, all of which were probably the slowest I’ve ever been on. What should have been a ten-minute commute must have taken us at least three times as long!

The following morning we had an uneventful walk to our ORD-MSP flight in Terminal 2. Within 20 minutes of leaving our hotel room, we were in the combined Presidents Club/WorldClub.

My flying patterns are a bit strange; I typically only visit the US 2-3 times per year, but when I’m there, I often take many internal flights. Since most of my short-haul flying’s in Europe, I get lounge access with my Skyteam Elite Plus status, so I’ve never bothered with a WorldClub membership. However, this itinerary involved ten visits to airports with lounges that I wouldn’t be eligible to access even with a purchased F ticket. So, in my book, taking advantage of NW’s 90-day WC membership for $85 would be well worth it.

The friendly attendant issued me with a paper card (me thinking, “other lounges are going to accept THIS?!”) and directed us into the lounge.

At 7:30 am on a Sunday, the lounge was deserted. For some reason, I had figured this club would be a bit ropey, kind of like the EWR or MSP F/G WorldClubs. Maybe because it’s in ORD, which really needs a massive earthquake to put it out of its misery. I guess I was wrong; I found the lounge to be nicely appointed and was very impressed. Bagels, muffins, yogurt, and great Douwe-Egberts coffee were on offer, and we indulged appropriately. Well, it’d be rude not to, right?

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Before we knew it, it was time to head to the gate. The GA tagged our collapsible pushchair for gate-checking, and we boarded the DC-9 for our short flight to MSP.

We took our seats in 1B, 1C and 1D (which would be our typical seating positions for the rest of the trip; me in the port aisle, Mrs. T in the starboard aisle, and BabyT in the starboard window.

The FAs offered water as a pre-departure beverage, then we boxed up the aircraft, pushed back 10 minutes early, and taxied straight across to 32L, where we were fifth in line for departure. The aircraft ahead of us were going aircraft-carrier-style: there could not have been more than 30 seconds’ separation between aircraft, and they were commencing their turns even during wheels up. Maybe this is an ORD-specific procedure, as I’ve never seen departures from the same runway happen in such rapid succession.

Unusually (in my experience anyway) we took off from T10 intersection, meaning that we only used two-thirds of the available runway. At 13,000 feet, 32L is one of the longer runways in the world, so our departure point still left more tarmac available than many other commercial airport runways.

A takeoff with the pointy end of the DC-9 already heading for MSP, coupled with minimal traffic on a Sunday morning, made for a short trip up to Wold-Chamberlain field, where we landed on 30R. Before we knew it, we’d picked up our car (Hyundai Santa Fe IIRC—decent but wasn’t well-cleaned, more on this later) at AVIS and headed for our second Priceline hotel of the trip, the Park Plaza in Bloomington for $45+. We spent the evening dining with friends and doing a little shopping before heading to bed early.

The following morning brought a bit of trepidation given the large amount of flying on our plate. Normally two flights totalling 7h30 wouldn’t be a big deal, but the time change coupled with potential baby screaming fits certainly caused a bit of worry.

We turned in the rental car at AVIS, where I complained that there was a juice bottle left under the passenger seat of the rental car, the windows were covered in water spots, and that AVIS renting a car in this condition didn’t do much for their brand. I was nice about it and totally non-confrontational. She knocked $20 off the rental! It would turn out that this was the first of four poorly-cleaned cars I would rent from AVIS. I’m going to reconsider my loyalty (or are all companies that bad in the US?).

We checked bags with indifferent agents at the underground NW check-in point before heading up the escalators to the security checkpoint. We went to the first-class check-in line and were through in about 5 minutes total.

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Travelling with a baby in the US certainly wasn’t too bad, but it was much easier with two parents. I was carrying my laptop bag, and Mrs. T wore her backpack, while her purse and the diaper bag were slung over the handlebars on the pushchair. We have a Mamas & Papas Pliko P3 travel system. We bought this one partly because it was on offer at the factory outlet centre in Huddersfield, but primarily because the pushchair part of it resembled a stroller, and folded down much more compact than most others on the market. Baby Trayflow rode in her car seat which was clicked into the pushchair.

At the security checkpoints, I would go first, taking charge of the bags, removing the laptop and liquids, then we’d undertake a joint effort in removing the car seat and collapsing the pushchair. After putting all this through the x-ray conveyor belt, we’d then remove the baby from the car seat and put it through the x-ray machine (the seat, not the baby).

We never got it down to a science, but within a few days we got reasonably passable at it. We didn’t want to be “those people” with kids that hold up the line forever, but I can tell you that there’s not much you can do about it. As much as we hustled and pre-organised, it still took about 2 minutes from arriving at the conveyor to clearing the area.

The TSA folks ranged from friendly and helpful to Gestapo-esque, but thankfully tended towards the former.

On all the flights, we approached the podium to get a gate-check tag for the pushchair, which we then left in the jetway. Most times it took a few minutes to arrive in the jetway and once or twice it was waiting for us. If we’d been in Economy class, I’m fairly certain it would have been waiting on us more often than we waited on it.

After killing some time in the E/F WorldClub, we strolled down to gate G22 (IIRC) just as they were preboarding, tagged the stroller and headed down the jetway to board the E175.

The Embraer E-175 is, IMHO, the best aircraft in NW’s domestic fleet. Maybe it’s because it’s new? No, that can’t be it, the CRJ-900s are new and they’re awful. Maybe because the seats are comfortable and padded? That’s definitely a factor. But perhaps most importantly, it’s because of the Compass crews which have, in the four times I’ve flown with them, been without exception very good to excellent.

We took our seats in 1A, C and D as our crew welcomed us, offered to help strap the baby in, brought pre-departure drinks, and generally set the tone for a great flight.

Another thing I like about Compass is that, once the aircraft is boarded, the captain stands at the front of the aircraft and addresses the passengers, detailing the flight route and other information. I find this gives a personal feeling to the flight.

We departed a few minutes early and taxied to Runway 12L and took off without delay. During climbout we made a series of left turns, which treated Seat 1A (me) to an aerial tour of the Twin Cities.

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About half an hour into the flight, once our E175 reached cruising altitude, the FA serving first class offered a beverage service before serving breakfast. We had a choice of cold cereal with milk, or a cheese omelette with sausage, bread roll, and a fruit plate with melon, grapes, and a strawberry. This was my second-ever hot meal service on a regional jet, the first being a 40-minute BA flight MAN-STN many years ago. On that flight, the FAs really had to work fast!

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Anyway, many FlyerTalkers have panned the NW breakfast omelette, saying it’s too greasy and downright disgusting. You can count me out of that group; it’s a guilty pleasure. It certainly hit the spot that morning.

We landed on 27L at IAH about 2h45 after takeoff, and had a short taxi to our arrival gate A12. Upon deplaning we commented to each other what a seamless travel experience we’d had thusfar. As it happened, we were tempting fate…

Call it poor planning on my part, but I was completely unaware that there is no way to access the Continental gates from Terminal A on foot. There is a Continental courtesy bus to shuttle passengers between the terminals. And what a disaster that was.

The signs directed us to queue up at Gate A2, at the far end of Terminal A. When we arrived, there were probably 25 people milling about waiting. There were two completely unhelpful and disinterested Continental employees at the gate podium, as well as a third guarding the entrance to the jetway. She spent her time talking on her Nextel.

After ten minutes or so, a bus finally arrived. As the bus got closer to the gate, the scattered group of people, which by this time numbered about 50, converged on the door to the jetway and formed a veritable scrum. During this time, the CO employees made no effort to impart any sense of order to the process. They never left the podium, and continued jabbering back and forth about unrelated subjects, completely ignoring the melee. Although there was one other person with a pushchair, and someone in a wheelchair as well, none of the staff made any attempt to help.

Once we got to the end of the jetway—surprise, surprise—the bus was full and a fourth staff member screamed at all of us to go back up the jetway into the gate area again. The other woman with the pushchair had made it onto the bus, but the person in the wheelchair didn’t. Anyway, you can imagine the confusion that ensued when those of us near the end of the jetway tried to get those already lined up the jetway to backtrack to the gate area. Utter chaos.

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It was another 15 minutes before a second bus showed up. Now, on the surface, 15 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but when you have a limited time for your connection and you have to transfer between terminals, 15 minutes is an eternity. Several people in the crowd were losing patience. Despite this, the crowd remained surprisingly civil.

After an intermediate stop at Terminal B, we arrived at Terminal C about 45 minutes after deplaning. Luckily, we had a well-padded connection (about 2h10) and we didn’t have to re-clear security, so we had a little time to go to the Presidents Club in the south concourse.

Once in the club, we supplied ourselves with Fritos (another guilty pleasure we can’t get in the UK) and drinks. Curious about what meal service we would receive on our 4h30 flight to SEA—the service was described as “snack”—I asked the lounge matron what sort of service we could expect.

“This flight has a snack service, this typically means a plate of meat and cheese, some bread… typically about 500 calories.”

Somewhat taken aback, having never heard an airline meal described in terms of its calorific content, I mustered the smoothest response I could think of. “Okay, so nothing too substantial like a four-course dinner service, but somewhat bigger than a bag of peanuts?”

Now, trust me when I tell you that my response had no venom, sarcasm, or condescension in it; I said it in my normal, easygoing manner.

The lounge matron looked at me over her reading glasses. “Sir, the typical recommended daily intake for a man is 2000 calories per day, for a woman it’s 1500 calories per day. Did you know that in New York City, they’re now requiring McDonald’s to post the calories of all their food on their menus, right next to the prices? Do you know how many calories are in a Big Mac super-sized value meal? 1,500.”

Being somewhat gobsmacked, I had no idea what to say. I have no idea what brought this lecture on. I mumbled a few things to appease the dragon before she breathed any more fire at me, and escaped the den at my earliest opportunity.

After a quick baby change (well, we changed the nappy, not the baby, we like her just fine), we headed to our gate, wondering why I bother with Houston. In my view, IAH is the perfect candidate for testing of the neutron bomb, should the idea ever be revived.


In my book, CO has the best premium cabin of any US airline I’ve flown, and I make efforts to book myself on flights where an upgrade is likely or guaranteed. However, this is a double-edged sword. I also find the First class clientele on CO to be just a bit more self-centred and egotistical than on DL or NW. Today’s gate lice crowd was a typical profile: male, 35-50 years old, chinos, golf shirt, and carrying both a crackberry and a sense of superiority. A couple of them were none best pleased when we tried to approach the podium (which involved breaking through the gate-lice crowd) to get a gate-check tag for the pushchair, and when First pre-boarding was called and we approached, body language and stares were all that was required to tell us, “hey, this is the first class line, wait for general boarding.” So you can imagine the chagrin when the family took up 1C, D and F. I normally don’t let this kind of thing bother me, but there was a tension really boiling beneath the surface on this day.

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We departed late and spent the better part of 45 minutes taxying. Baby TrayflowInUK is all about full throttles, and, despite her tender age of nine months, this was now her twenty-first flight. She was not to be fooled by taxying around IAH on one engine: she wanted take-off NOW. So, Mrs. T and I could feel the piercing stares of the all-male 40+ First Class cabin on us as we did our best to appease a grumpy baby in 1F. Once we took off, she calmed down a bit and went to sleep about 20 minutes into the flight; this turned into a three-hour nap. This was the worst flight we had with her. I think she’d just had enough flying for one week.

Despite its 4h30 minute block time, I don’t remember much about CO1739 besides our baby being grumpy for the first hour. Strangely, I don’t remember what the snack was like; I seem to remember it being more filling than the lounge dragon predicted.

One thing I do remember is the smell. Somebody in the cabin, or maybe it was one of the FAs, was emitting deadly fumes, about the worst I’ve ever smelled. I mean, it was BAD. I began to wonder if the lav had backed up or something, but on an inspection trip I found nothing amiss.

On approach into the Seattle area, we were treated to an outstanding view of Mount Rainier and, later, the Olympic Mountains.

We rented our car at AVIS, Jeep Compass this time, set up the TomTom, and headed into our week’s travels around Washington.

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We spent four lovely nights around Mount Rainier and Olympic National Park, and stayed a fifth and final night with my long-lost cousin in Bellevue before heading to the airport at oh-dark-thirty to catch our first-ever Alaska Airlines flight.

SeaTac airport is wedged into a pretty small area, and I’ve always found the access road to be a bit convoluted. It’s sort of a Rube Goldberg arrangement, kind of laid out like a paper clip, and I always seem to find myself going away from the place I’m meant to be heading, only to make some 180-degree turn and head back towards it, only to miss my exit and go around the bend again.

Since we needed to top off the rental car, we found a Shell station across from the cargo area. At this point, we couldn’t have been more than half a mile from the rental car return area, but due to the configuration of the roadways (and perhaps our lack of familiarity with the area), we had to drive about two or three miles along the paper-clip-like path to reach the car return. This chomped up what little slack time we’d built into our schedule.

We turned in the car at AVIS at about 7:10, spent minutes waiting for elevators (only two this time!), and made it to the AS MVP/First Class check-in area at about 7:15.

Evidently, everyone in SEA either flies First or is an MVP, because there must have been thirty lines, all of them with five or six people in them. To add a bit of complication, the check-in area has a strange configuration, in which one agent handles two lines simultaneously. Leave it to us to pick the line with three unaccompanied minors ahead of us.

Suffice to say, it was 7:30 by the time luggage was checked and boarding passes in hands and 7:40 by the time we cleared security.

By this time, we were both deeply in need of a bio break (we had each polished off our water bottles on the way to the airport), and so after a quick pit stop we were among the last to board the 737-400.

I believe this was the first flight of our trip to have open seats in First. The aircraft had 3 rows of seats arranged AB-CD, and there were at least four seats open. One of them was next to me, so we got Row 1 to ourselves.

I was quite taken with the AS interior. We sat on well-broken-in leather seats, but the bulkheads were carpeted in a Native American theme that, for me anyway, really brought back 1970s-80s aircraft interiors.

We pushed back a couple of minutes late, taxied to 16L, and took off through 4000-6000 ft overcast skies. As we blasted through the overcast, we were treated to an excellent vista of Mount Rainier towering above the cloud deck.

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As we continued south, the clouds began to dissipate and we had a decent view of Mount Saint Helens.

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Thirty minutes into flight, we were served a breakfast quiche with sausages and the now-ubiquitous fruit plate with melon, grapes, and strawberries.

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By the time we passed the Columbia River, the clouds were all but gone, and I took in the views of Oregon and California. The pilot gave good commentary; normally I’m used to them announcing the rough flight path and occasionally pointing out significant landmarks. This captain, however, talked in turn about Mount Saint Helens, gave a short lecture on how Crater Lake was created, and also filled us in on salient facts about Lake Tahoe.

The FAs were cheery and helpful, and gave Baby T plenty of attention, especially once the service was completed.

I was pretty happy with AS service and would happily fly them again.

To continue the 1970s theme, we arrived more or less on time into LAX T3 and were faced with the most difficult transfer of our trip.

LA downtown on approach
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The Encounter Restaurant and LAX Control Tower
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AS Terminal 3, like stepping back in time
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I find it so disheartening that most visitors to the US enter through JFK, ATL, ORD and LAX. In my view, ORD and LAX are among the worst in the country. It’s sort of like saying, “welcome to the USA, now F*** off.”

To transfer from Terminal 3 to Terminal 2 with a pushchair, we had to exit the secure area, and take the elevator down to the check-in level (Level 2 IIRC). Of course, there is only one elevator in T3 outside the secure area, and it has to serve people going between all three floors. There was a small queue of people waiting for the lift when we got there. The car arrived, and these people filled it up. Okay, fine so we’re first in line for the next one. This was a bit of an adventure in itself.

Three times, the elevator car arrived full of people who clearly didn’t want to be on the third floor of T3 at LAX. The doors would open, and about ten people would stare out of the elevator in a genuinely surprised fashion, as if they boarded the lift at a mall in Cincinnati and were magically transported to an airport in Los Angeles. This would lead to a standoff where no words were exchanged, no one stepped off the lift and none of the ever-growing crowd attempted to board, until the doors finally closed on their own and the hapless occupants would be taken to their next stop. A bank in Albuquerque, I’d guess.

Finally we got on, but there were at least 20 people with strollers and wheelchairs waiting by this time. Luckily, we were transported to the second floor, and not some high-rise in Tallahassee.

The whole T3 elevator ordeal took all of ten minutes. Had I known it would be such a hassle, I’d have carried the pushchair and the suitcases down the stairs.

We then walked along the check-in level to T2. Take-home message: LAX is sorely in need of a remodelling. I’ll just leave it at that.

Once we arrived in T3, yet another elevator shuffle. This time, it only took about five minutes, and the lift appeared to be behaving itself.

By the time we cleared security and arrived in the dumpy WorldClub, we only had about 15 minutes left before we needed to head down to Gate 22 for our MSP flight.

As much as I’d like to write a treatise on what a disgrace the LAX WorldClub is, I think I’ll just leave it for now. This was my fourth visit in as many years, and I just can’t believe that Skyteam finds that an acceptable lounge for at leave five 747/777 intercontinental departures per day.

Down at Gate 22, somehow a full 757-300 complement of people managed to fit into an area the size of a shoebox. However, the gate staff was friendly and accommodating, and we were soon on board.

This was our second NW mainline flight on the trip. Let’s just say that the feeling of exclusivity afforded by boarding through Door 2L and turning left to the First Class cabin was the high point of the flight. A dingy aircraft, unmotivated staff, and minimum service were the rule of the day.

As usual, I sat in 1B and the girls were in 1CD. The lady in 2D played with Baby T which was nice. We had some sort of snack, I believe. I think it was a wrap, salad, and one of those yummy cookies.

Any time savings made by an early landing followed by my shortest-ever taxi at MSP—we landed on 12R and taxied to G16—were cancelled by a 25-minute wait for luggage. In the end, it worked out fine, because my sister, who had driven down from Grand Forks, ND, for the occasion, picked us up curbside just minutes after we got our bags. After an unremarkable dinner at Chevy’s by the Mall of America, we retired to the Sheraton Bloomington, where I’d booked two rooms for $45+ each. At check-in, we ask for and got adjoining rooms which was convenient as my sister found she didn’t have any towels in hers. Other than that, the rooms were very nice.

However, I must comment on the first of two annoying hotel experiences on this trip.

Annoying Hotel Experience No 1: Animé Convention. I hope I don’t offend anyone with this, and no malice is intended, but it was a real freak show. I guess I just don’t get it.

Once my sister dropped me off curbside, the logistics of the trip eased considerably. From here on, I would be flying without the Mrs. and baby in tow.

I love travelling with them, and I’m happy to keep up the pace of flying in spite of all the people that have told me, “oh, now that you’ve got kids, you’ll have to stop all that travelling.”

That being said, it is a helluva lot easier going solo.

My first reminder of how easy it is: no checked bags. I headed right for the kiosk, printed the boarding pass (2A), and headed for security.

I skipped the priority lane because it wasn’t any quicker, and was through in minutes (no pushchair to collapse or safety seat to sort!). Matter of fact, I had completely underestimated the time required to check in and clear security, which meant I had an inordinate amount of time to spend in the WorldClub by C25.

To be fair to NW, there are quite a few WorldClubs that are very nice, and the relatively new one by C25 is one of them. Well done, NW. My only complaint is that most of them are just too small, and too few have showers. Anyway, if I was a regular traveller in the US, I’d definitely spring for a membership. Decent value for elites who like good coffee, booze and wifi. Plus, it’s the healthy option. I reckon that, when I have lounge access, I easily walk twice as far at an airport like MSP than I would otherwise. I’m sure that counteracts the cookies, gin & tonics, and bagels.

I was both eager and apprehensive about today’s flights. First, this was to be my first CRJ-900 experience, and in F to boot. As bullish as I am about the ERJ-175s, and as much as I hate the CRJ-200s, I was sincerely hoping to be impressed. Perhaps I was hoping for a redemption of sorts for the Bombardier folks.

Second, this was my first of two days where I’d be connecting on two different tickets issued by different airlines. In short: misconnect = big problems (potentially). Of course, I had mrcimino1 as my TA, so I was confident he could help me sort out any emergencies, you know, act as a guardian angel. But still… there were risks.

About half an hour before departure, I left the WorldClub for gate C23, where for the first time I noticed the waitlist screens in operation. Pretty slick.

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Pre-boarding was soon called, and, after getting a gate-check tag for my rollaboard, I walked onto the Mesaba CRJ N901XJ with great anticipation. And I was, well, very disappointed. It just wasn’t comfortable. The seat wasn’t very supportive, and, more annoyingly, it felt like it was always reclined. I sat in 2A and I asked the gentleman in 3A several times if I was reclining into him. What a shame. I guess I should be thankful that NW equipped them with First Class seating to that elites would have something to upgrade into. But why couldn’t they outfit them like the ERJ-175?

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I breathed a sigh of relief as the flight pushed back ahead of schedule, and we taxied out to Runway 17… at least we wouldn’t be facing any departure delays!

Lunch was served, this time I chose the Cobb Salad, which was fresh, tasty, and quite filling. Along with it came the ubiquitous cookie and fruit plate. Not a bad meal for regional jet fare.
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We arrived in ATL more or less on time and taxied into our gate. Since I didn’t have my onward boarding passes for my CO flight, I decided to head for the Presidents Club, which was the only Skyteam club in ATL that I hadn’t yet visited. I figured this would be a good place to relax, and they could probably issue the boarding pass.

It was at this point that I had my first Mental Lapse of the Day.

Mental Lapse No 1: For some reason, I had it in my head that the P-club was in Terminal C. So, after I stepped off the plane and got my gate-checked bag, I went straight for the escalators, headed downstairs to the terminal train station, and rode it to Terminal C. As I exited the train, I stopped to read the monitors, only to find that CO1150 was leaving from D12.

At this point, it dawned on me that perhaps the Presidents Club was in Terminal D, not C.

So, I caught the next train back to Terminal D, headed back up the escalator and looked for gate D12. Sure enough, the Presidents Club was right there, wedged between gate D12 and D14. And right there at gate D14 was a Mesaba CRJ-900, N901XJ. The very plane I arrived on. I had managed to make a 15-minute excursion out of a 15-yard walk.

I guess I needed the exercise anyway.

The friendly receptionist at the Presidents Club had no problem issuing me a boarding pass for 1F. I was really happy to be riding in First, especially on a hub-hub route like ATL-EWR on a 737-500, which only has eight First Class seats. Much to my surprise, the upgrade had come through about three days prior. IME, elite upgrades on CO 735s are about as common as rocking horse poo.

I had booked myself a well-padded connection at ATL, and it was announced that we would be delayed by 30 minutes due to a late inbound aircraft.

The ATL Presidents Club, although one of the smaller in the CO network, is a nice place to kill some time, with good views of the apron. As I wasn’t really in the mood to drink, I had some water and caught up with work for a couple of hours. I also got a view of the CRJ-900 that brought me to ATL pushing back for its flight back to MSP.

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Before I knew it, boarding time was upon us. I fought for bin space with the other seven First Class passengers, settled back, and enjoyed the great cabin service which I seem to invariably get on CO.

The flight took us over Charlotte, where I got a good view of the airport, and then just west of Chesapeake Bay.

It was shortly after this that I had my second Mental Lapse of the Day.

Mental Lapse No 2: Although I’m pretty adept at geography, I’m sadly deficient on the detailed layout of the eastern seaboard of the US. In a pinch I could probably sketch a crude map of the states and locations of capital cities. But I’ve only visited the mid-Atlantic and North East a couple of times. I only know roughly where things lie and I don’t really have a concept of distances.

As we passed Chesapeake Bay, the sky clouded up a bit, I’d say 5/8 broken at 5,000 feet.

We started to descend, and at a break in the clouds, I saw Newark Airport. I could tell by the familiar “No 7” runway layout, with parallel runways on the / part of the 7 and a river just to the east. One thing I do know is airport runway layouts!

We continued our descent in a northerly direction, so I figured we were going to have to fly north to avoid air traffic, and make a U-turn over New York State or Connecticut to make our approach to 22L or 22R.

However, we just kept on going north and continued to descend at a relatively slow rate. I tried to pick out landmarks, but didn’t recognise anything. As it happens, I saw an interesting feature that turned out to be the memorial built for the crash site of United Flight 93 on 9/11, I figured this out later by tracing our flight path on Google Earth.

I began to think we were going to be seriously late, that we must be somewhere near Hartford or Albany, when the flaps were extended, the gear was dropped, and I saw Staten Island and Lower Manhattan in the distance. We made a straight-in landing on Rwy 4R.

I later found that the airport I’d picked out as EWR from the sky was PHL, which has a broadly similar runway arrangement.

Just as I was beginning to think that it just wasn’t my day, all doubts were removed when we taxied to the penalty box, shut down an engine, and waited 50 minutes for a gate.

Ahhh, welcome to Newark.

The place always amazes me. Although Continental has refurbished and expanded much of Terminal C, the airport’s pretty much a dump and suffers both from congested airspace and a lack of tarmac. Yet, on this afternoon I saw a Lufthansa 747-400, an Air France A330-200, a Qatar Airways A330-200, an Air India 747-400, a TAP A340-300, a BA 777-200, and a L’Avion 757-200. I probably saw more, but I didn’t take pictures or notes.

I guess if you want to fly into New York, EWR is the lesser of the evils?

In booking this trip, I worked to maximise mileage and minimise cost while not having more than two segments in a day, and being able to maintain a reasonable work schedule.

I needed to get to Indianapolis that night, and ITA Software came up with the cheapest option being two separate one-way tickets with a connection in Orlando. This was about half the price of the non-stop EWR flight, which was a jungle jet to boot. Also, CO 37, a 757-200 International Configuration (i.e., 16 seats in BusinessFirst layout with AVOD), came up as one of the available flights. To top it off, I’d heard great things about the DL Crown Room Club at MCO.

My mind was made up. MCO, here I come.

However, during the booking process, I saw that there was a full Y-fare available for a fairly reasonable premium. I figured the additional EQMs plus the elite upgrade at ticketing were a lock.

So, after two busy days in Bridgewater/Somerset, I dropped off the rental car—Chrysler 300M, I’ve always wanted to drive one and was sadly underwhelmed—and took the Airtrain to Terminal C where I had a five-minute wait for security. Again, I had underestimated the amount of time required for driving to EWR, turning in the car, and clearing security, and I found myself with plenty of time to enjoy the Presidents Club near Gate C120.

They let me drive the Airtrain! (well, not really)
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A BA 777-200 at EWR, as seen from the Airtrain
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The Presidents Club near C120
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The lounge is greatly improved since they expanded it. I commented on this to one of the lounge attendants who laughed at me and said the expansion was completed a couple of years ago. I guess I’ve been using the P-Club above the food court (by gate C75) for the past few years!

It was a hot day, and I figured a shower was a good way to kill time. There was one available, so after a quick freshening up, it was time to head to gate C135.

For some reason, they skipped preboarding and boarded First Class last. I guess there were a lot of kids, and we boarded through Door 1L (typical for gate C135, this is the third time I’ve used this gate). No big deal, but there were five or six self-important suits that really got upset about this, and rushed the gate when First was finally called. Sheesh, it’s an F cabin with 16 seats and 55-inch pitch, is it really necessary to fret about overhead bin space? Relax, people!

We pushed back a few minutes late, and had relatively few delays for takeoff. Once we were airborne, I decided to play with the touch-screen AVOD system. Strangely, I was the only person in First that used it!

Today I was treated to “Pot Luck Random Movie Selection.” At least, this is how I christened the AVOD system. There were something like 16 films available, but there was a strange quirk where the title of the film, thumbnail picture, and short description didn’t match up. For example, there would be a thumbnail of “Be Kind Rewind” and a written description of “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me”, but if you played the movie it would be “Ironman.” Fun!

No food was served on the flight; actually, this was the poorest service of the three CO flights I had on this trip, but still solid.

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The 757-200 BusinessFirst cabin
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We landed on 17L and taxied for about 150 miles to our gate on the opposite side of the airport.

I exited the aircraft into the wonderful central Florida air conditioning of Orlando International Airport, where I had four hours at my disposal.

This was only my third time at the airport, and both previous times I’ve been either arriving or departing. I had remembered the airport as being fairly nice, but I was very impressed. Matter of fact, by the end of my four hour layover, I was in no hurry to leave. I think MCO might now be my favourite airport in the US. In the top five anyway.

If you’re not familiar with MCO, here’s a layout:
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There are four satellites and two security checkpoints, one that covers gates 1-59 and another that covers 60-129.

As I was arriving on CO and departing on NW, in theory I wouldn’t have to clear security. But since I was hell-bent on going to much-applauded DL Crown Room Club (which is located above the Gate 60-99 Satellite) to see what it was all about, I would have to clear security twice.

I was a bit concerned about whether the TSA would let me through without a DL boarding pass, thus meaning I’d have to clear security twice for no benefit.

Regardless, I pressed on, exiting the secure area and walking the length of the main terminal building.

Straight away, I was impressed with the layout, condition, cleanliness and facilities in the airport. There were many nice restaurants and a Hyatt hotel above the central part of the airport. As it happened, I would return later to have a little dinner at Macaroni Grill.

I arrived at the Gate 60-129 security checkpoint to find a queue of massive proportions. I later realised that there were numerous international flights leaving within the next couple of hours, including BA to London, VS to London, AM to Mexico City, and LH to Frankfurt. There must have been 200 people waiting to clear security.

It was at this point I went from being impressed to being very impressed with MCO. I was through security in less than five minutes. It was handled efficiently and professionally by the TSA, and well-organised. The boarding-pass and ID-checker had no problem letting me through without a boarding pass for a flight in his area when I told him I wanted to access the CRC.

It was so crowded in the area that I had to wait for a second shuttle train to take me to the satellite. Despite the huge queues, there were representatives from the airlines and the airport in this area to keep order and make sure people headed in the right direction.

Within a few minutes, I arrived at the entrance to the CRC. I took the lift up to the top floor where very friendly staff checked my credentials and welcomed me to their lounge.

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The lounge was busy, but plenty large enough to accommodate everyone. It took up the entire upper floor of the satellite building. There was a children’s play area, a bar, quiet rooms, great views over the runways and gates. There wasn’t any catering to speak of, but the décor was nice and staff very friendly.
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The lounge seems to do a lot of contract work, handling AM, BA, VS, and LH passengers. During the two hours I spent in the club, the crowd thinned down a lot as flights were called for boarding. By the time I headed back to the main terminal area for dinner at Macaroni Grill, the lounge was nearly empty.

I headed back through security at 19.45 or so, and there was no line whatsoever. I took the train down to the Gate 30-59 Satellite where NW departs from.

NW likes to keep in character, and its gate area was no exception. It was really a depressing little corner of the airport, with old signage, battered furniture and dirty carpets.

In typical MCO fashion, the flight was oversold in economy and op-ups galore were given. When I checked in for the flight, there were three seats taken in F, and in the end it went out full. It was amusing watching people trying to figure out how to work the air vents and reading lights, and gauging their surprise at receiving pre-flight drinks, as well as free drinks during the flight in glass glasses.

We had a really nice flight crew, and the trip to IND passed without incident.

I caught the AVIS shuttle to the remote rental car facility where another Chrysler 300M awaited. The engine was running and the aircon was on; I thought this was a nice touch by AVIS. If only they would have cleaned the car.

I headed straight for my hotel, the Marriott Indianapolis Downtown, where self-parking was $25/night (robbery) and where I had my second annoying hotel experience of the trip.

Annoying Hotel Experience No 2: Segway convention. Segways everywhere. In the lobby. In the restaurant. In the valet parking area. In the elevators. Do people who have Segways realise how annoying they are?

Although I never had an opinion on Segways, I grew to hate them until the final day, when at check-out I saw a fellow who’d lost both his legs riding a Segway around instead of a wheelchair. Okay, that’s a pretty cool solution. Compact, manoeuvrable, probably liberating. I can deal with that. But Segway conventions rate 8/10 on the annoying scale.

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Stupidly, I again overestimated the amount of time required to drive to the airport and clear security. IND’s still a dump, but at least NW has freshened up the place with new signage. That said, the NW A gates are a painful place to kill 45 minutes.

The flight to MSP went without incident. No pre-flight drinks of any kind were offered. We had great views of Indy on takeoff. I don’t remember anything else.

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Although we arrived into a G gate and departed from a G gate, I chose to skip the E/F WorldClub and schlep over to the club by Gate C25.

On reflection, since MSP has the crossover skyway, it’s probably not much farther. This was my second visit to this club this week, but I still enjoy it. I like the views and the décor. It wasn’t too busy either.

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I headed back to G19 for the flight to CLT. Fortunately, this flight had been upgraded from a DC-9-50 to an A319 in the past couple of weeks, but I didn’t realise this until I boarded the aircraft.

Although CLT upgrades are usually an easy score—indeed, there were op-ups on this flight as there have been on many other CLT flights I’ve taken in the past—I was particularly happy to get this upgrade because it meant dinner service. Things only got better when I boarded the aircraft and found I had two seats to myself.

We pushed back ahead of schedule, taxied out to 30R and took off without delay. The weather was hazy with an overcast layer at perhaps 15,000 feet, and we broke through this into a beautiful evening light. Dinner was served as the sun was setting; we had a choice between a vegetarian lasagne and a beef chow mein. I chose the latter, and it was pretty good, sweet and just a bit spicy, although the noodles were a tad dry.

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As night fell, the sky cleared up and we were treated to nice sparkly views of cities and landscape below. I snapped a surprisingly clear picture of a city, any guesses as to which one?

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The flight crew this evening was very senior, but excellent. They really gave great service, starting with pre-flight drinks and continuing right until we landed on 36L. This gave us a short and straight taxi to our gate, where we arrived 20 minutes early.

I had tried online check-in for this flight the previous evening, but had not been able to check in. I chalked this up to the flight being the last segment in an NW-issued itinerary that covered Segments 11-14. Indeed, the two previous segments were still showing on delta.com the day before departure. But, on the morning of departure, the previous segments had been automatically cleared from my reservation so that only DL1869 showed up on delta.com, but still no OLCI.

Not too worried, I’d been able to book an exit row seat 14D on this Pinnacle-operated CRJ-900.

I was originally booked on an MD-88 flight, but this was eliminated from the schedule and I was rebooked on this CRJ-900 flight operated by Pinnacle.

I showed up to CLT about 45 minutes prior to departure and marched up to the kiosk. I tried manually entering my DL PNR (nwa.com is nice enough to tell you the PNRs for other reservation systems), no dice. I tried by flight number and name. Nothing. I tried several different options. The desk staff, who were friendly enough but were handling several flights and outnumbered by kiosks, told me to try with my credit card. That still didn’t work. Now that it was 30 minutes to departure and I’d been messing with this kiosk for at least ten minutes, the staff took pity on me.

They were able to spit out a boarding pass for 4A.

“What’s this?” I queried, “I’ve booked 14D, the exit row.”

“Sorry sir, it seems the exit row seats were released. But I think 4A might be a bulkhead.”

“Is there anyway you can just upgrade me, I’m a Platinum Elite on NW, which, before you know it, will make me one on DL as well,” I said with a big grin.

The desk supervisor took my BP and checked the seat map, furrowed his brow, and said, “Sir, this aircraft that you’re on is a strange configuration. 4A doesn’t even show on my seatmap. You might want to ask at the gate, but as it’s 25 minutes to departure you might want to get going.”

“It’s not first class already, is it?”

“No, you are definitely not in first, not sure what it is.”

So I headed through security (though in 5 minutes) and down to Gate A3 where boarding was nearly completed.

I approached the podium and asked the gate agent if I could get a gate check tag for my rollaboard. She said that the other GA would give me one when he took my boarding pass. So, I rolled the conversation into my seat… “I’ve had my exit row seat reservation taken away and been given seat 4A. At check-in, they weren’t sure whether this plane actually has a seat 4A. Also, is there any way I can get my exit row seat back, or is there any way I can be moved to First?”

“I’m sorry sir, the flight is completely full in First and Economy, but I assure you seat 4A does exist on this aircraft.”

I wasn’t overly concerned; the flight blocked in a 1h07 and even that was more or less tolerable on a CRJ-900, so I just went with the flow. Everybody at DL had been pretty easygoing and friendly, so why push the issue?

I waited until the queue had dissipated, and got my gate check tag as my BP was scanned.

I headed down the jetway and walked onto the plane and the first thing that registered in my head was, “hey, there are four rows of First on this aircraft!”

For the short 45-minute flight, I was treated to First on a Pinnacle Airlines CRJ-900. There was no comparison with the Mesaba CRJ-900 I flew last week in terms of comfort. The seats were similar, if not identical, to the ones Compass used in their ERJ-175s. It was actually an enjoyable ride.

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Some people in First had pre-flight drinks, but I was never offered one, perhaps because I was last to board?

The service was perfunctory at best; a snack basket was brought around, and I ordered a Gin & Tonic which came a few minutes later in a nice tumbler. Unfortunately, it was Gin & Soda. Oh well.

We landed at Gate B-something, and it took about five minutes for the gate-checked luggage to make it into the jetway.

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I decided to get some exercise, so skipped the underground train system and walked the 900 m to Terminal E. It was kind of enjoyable actually, just to get my bones moving. As I passed several of the stops along the way, I felt a bit sorry for those in a hurry who were really crammed into the trains. I think I’m going to skip the train and walk at ATL in future.

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This was an excellent trip report with great pictures and detail. I would like to bring your attention to the PDA site for CO (Link (http://pda.continental.com/PDA20/FlightStatusGateInfo.aspx)). At this site you can see a detailed report of what meal you will be served, flight standby lists, seat maps, upgrade standby lists and much more. Enjoy!

It was about 13.40 when I made it to Terminal E.

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At one time, there was a Crown Room Club in Terminal E, next to the food court, and a BusinessElite Lounge just a bit farther east, next to gate E15.

Sometime this year, the BusinessElite lounge was given a generic re-branding and is now also a Crown Room Club, but it’ll always be the ATL BusinessElite lounge to me and I’ll continue to refer to it as such in this TR.

I always found the Terminal E CRC to be a poor effort. Nice enough décor, but laughably small for the volume of passengers it needs to handle. The only redeeming quality of this lounge are the showers, which the BusinessElite lounge does not have. As the BusinessElite lounge doesn’t open until 14.00, I spent about ten minutes in the CRC, five of which was spent trying to find a place to sit.

At 14.00, I headed for the BE lounge, which is far nicer. It’s got nice wide open spaces, a panoramic view of long-haul aircraft at the gate, friendly staff, and relatively good food offerings. Also, since it’s situated just a bit farther down the corridor and around the corner from the CRC, many people don’t realise it’s there and pack themselves into the CRC (although announcements are sometimes made in the CRC directing people to the BE lounge for more space). Today there were carrots and celery, potato salad, crackers, cheese, some sort of lasagne dish, and loads of little desserts in shot glasses. I indulged in a little of everything.

However, the best part of the BE lounge is that there are two “quiet rooms”. These are very dark rooms separated from the main seating area by glass doors, which block out most of the noise. I find these rooms are often empty as people seem to think they’re not allowed to sit in them. Indeed, I usually make it a point to sit conspicuously in view of the glass door and keep all the lights either out or dimmed (that’s right, the room’s lights are on a dimmer switch). People tend to poke their head in the door, and seem to think they’re disturbing me, which they often are. I usually find that the only people who actually come in and sit in the quiet rooms are people who actually intend to be quiet, and that’s fine with me. I am so burned out on my American comrades who feel they need to air their entire life story on their crackberry at 85 decibels… let them sit in the general seating area, say I!

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Today I had the room all to myself for about an hour and a half, until a woman in her mid-30s, attractive in a Marian-the-Librarian kind of way, came in. She never made a peep. We got along just fine.

Before I knew it, boarding was nigh. As I was booked in business class, and I intended to get two seats to myself, I was in no hurry to board early. I waited until about 30 minutes prior to departure before heading down to Gate E26.

I stopped by to take a picture of the aircraft, and found the method of windscreen cleaning rather amusing.

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Earlier in the day, I had checked loads on KL622 and seen it was J9 S9, i.e., plenty of seats for sale in both cabins. However, at OLCI I found that seat 1B was taken, and I was in 1A. I was keen on getting some sleep, but also being able to enjoy my first flight on a KLM A330-200. So, once I was sure check-in was closed and most people had boarded, I went to the podium before boarding to see about getting two seats to myself.

The friendly Swissport agents, one of whom I’ve dealt with since I first took KL622 in 2004, handed me a boarding pass for 6H.

KLM’s A330-200s are arranged with five rows of WorldBusiness Class, but these are broken into two sections. Rows 1-3 are located in front of Door 2, and rows 6-7 are located behind Door 2. There is a galley in line with Door 2, and a simple bulkhead wall separating Row 7 from Economy Class.

http://www.klm.com/travel/gb_en/travel_information/on_board/seating_plans/A330-200.htm

Thus, 6H was a bulkhead aisle in the second section of WBC.

Okay, so the first challenge—getting two seats to myself—was behind me. Now to tackle the second: preventing any funny business by the KL flight crew.

If you peruse the KL forums, you’ll see it’s well-known that, once the doors close, any number of funny things can happen. Friends of the flight crew magically move up from economy, WBC pax are asked to relocate, etc. For example, on my AMS-ORD flight (Segment 2 in this TR), it happened.

So, as I boarded, I had a friendly word with the purser, telling her that I specially booked a seat without anyone next to me, and letting her know that I would really appreciate it staying this way. She seemed slightly taken aback, saying, “Don’t worry, sir, only the ground staff assign seating.”

I replied, “Yes, I understand; but sometimes, due to operational reasons, I know that the flight crew has to re-seat passengers. I’m just saying that I’d prefer to keep two seats to myself.”

I had conducted the conversation as nicely as I could, but I was worried I’d offended her. I needn’t have been concerned. It turned out that this would be one of the best KLM flights I’d ever taken. The purser and flight crew did everything they could to make this a great experience for me.

Within minutes of me boarding, the door was closed and the jetway pulled back. This was probably 10 minutes prior to scheduled departure. I looked around the cabin and realised this was going to be a great flight: there were only two of us sitting in the second section of business class. And the other guy was already asleep!

I took the opportunity to snap some pictures of the seats and cabin. In short, I was fairly impressed. A massive improvement over the 767-300ER that used to serve this route.

Seats 6H and 6J, missing window doesn’t affect view too much
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Rows 6 and 7
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Seats 7HJ
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Row 6, note bassinet positions at each bulkhead
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Second business class cabin, Rows 6 and 7
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Seat adjustment control
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Power points on seats
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Departure time came and went, and the captain came on the PA stating that, due to very favourable headwinds, our flight time would be 7h30, which would put us into AMS well before 07.00. For “environmental reasons” (his words, not mine) we would then wait at the gate for 20 minutes in order to aim for a landing at 07.00.

I found the “environmental reasons” a bit strange, since there are intercontinental flights (such as NW40 from DTW) that arrive even before 06.00 in AMS.

While we waited, the FAs brought nuts and drinks around, which I thought was a nice touch.

A few minutes before 17.00, we pushed back and taxied towards Runway 26L. However, once we were on Taxiway Golf (over by the control tower and the “Fly Delta Jets” sign), the A330 came to a halt. A few minutes later, I heard the No 2 engine shut down.

No further announcement was made, but I assumed this second delay was perhaps due to revised wind forecasts or other traffic restrictions. About 20 minutes later, the engine started and we taxied off to Runway 26L where we took off at 17.30.

The more I fly westbound transatlantics, the more I get frustrated with the short flight times. By the time dinner has been served, and if you factor in the wakeup call, you’re looking at five hours of sleep if you’re lucky, and often less than four. You can skip all meals and service and perhaps get six hours of shut-eye, but then it’s a shame to spend all that money on the business class experience.

Thus, I’ve implemented a 4,500-mile rule… I try to only take flights that are 4,500 miles or longer when heading eastbound. (Actually, I usually try to get a flight out of SFO or LAX, but that rarely works out for me.) Of course, this rule is easily broken for price or convenience factors. When I arranged this trip, I had many choices for my return TATL flight; I could have connected through nearly any hub on any KL or NW flight into AMS.

Due to pricing issues, I had one stopover and I needed it to be in the eastern half of the US so that I could nest my domestic itineraries. Rule #1 (which trumps the 4,500-mile rule, it’s a convoluted rule book I’ve developed) was to stay off NW. So that cancelled out MEM, which at 4,544 miles is a good length. IAH was out, I just couldn’t get the ticket to price through IAH, due to the backtracking. So the next choice was ATL at 4401 miles. Close enough! Plus, this gave me the opportunity to try the new (to me) A330-200, and its relative proximity to CLT (where my parents live) was comforting in case everything fell apart somehow.

Right after takeoff, we made a right turn which gave sweeping views of Atlanta, before heading directly for Newfoundland and our North Atlantic track.

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Dinner was served as we flew above the Atlantic states. I started with smoked and peppered tuna (presented with udon salad, polenta and cucumber) before moving on to a very nicely-done beef tenderloin with porcini mushroom crust. This was finished by a very nice chocolate almond cake. This time, the FA told me there were three choices for dessert and I was welcome to all of them, but there was no way I could have eaten another bite.

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By the time dinner was finished, we were over Newfoundland. I hit the pillow and slept fairly well. Although these were definitely slippery slope seats, I found them more comfortable than those installed on NW’s A330s. With a few minor adjustments and some extra pillows, I slept soundly.

I had asked to be woken for breakfast, but I slept through the wakeup call. Evidently I was sleeping pretty hard. However, the smell of cooking must have woken me up above East Yorkshire—if it wasn’t so cloudy I could’ve probably picked out my house—and within a minute of me stirring, the FA asked me if I still wanted my breakfast.

Upon boarding in ATL, I had pre-ordered the hartig-gerecht which today was a breakfast quesadilla, along with fruit yoghurt, müesli, and smoked salmon.

This was brought out to me, along with a fruit plate and an ice cold glass of milk. As I tucked in, we had already begun our descent, and as I was finishing up, we were just about to make our landfall over a windswept Dutch coast.

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We made our approach to the south, passing over Het IJ and the A9/A200 junction before landing on the Polderbaan (18R). Our taxi to gate E16 was shortened from 9 km to about 6 km, as we were allowed to cross the Zwanenburgbaan (18C), thus avoiding the long detour south, and we arrived about 20 minutes early.

Crossing over the IJ, with IJmuiden in the distance
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The A9/A200 junction, a short distance from the runway threshold
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I walked over to Crown Lounge 42 and asked to be put on the waiting list for a shower before making myself comfortable over by the computers. My boarding card was put in queue with about eight others and I figured a shower was probably not in the cards.

Of course, I never was called, but I didn’t care that much. The showers in Lounge 42 are a bit miserable. They’re small, dark, poorly ventilated, and, IMHO, not very hygienic. I can’t wait until the Lounge 52 expansion is completed, I understand there will be more showers then.

I walked to Gate D6, “Gateway to the Fokker Farm” as I call it, where there was no security queue. Once boarding was called, I employed my special KLM Cityhopper boarding strategy, which is to be the very last person to board. That way, I avoid getting crammed onto the first bus (there are always two buses unless you’re on an F50), and, if I’m the last to board, I can pick a seat with an empty one next to it.

Departure Lounge 2, on the way from the Crown Lounge to Gate D6
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There was no need today, since I had a row to myself. The F70 on this route had been swapped with an F100, so there was plenty of space. I had 3D assigned, but quickly moved to 3F for the views. I snapped a picture of an F100 parked to our right, unusual plain white paint scheme but I suspect it’s been dry-leased to get KLC out of a bind with aircraft availability.

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We took off on the Kaagbaan (Rwy 24) and quickly reached our low cruising altitude of 24,000 ft for the short hop to HUY (Humberside). Typical KLM sandwiches were given out, and service was identical between Europe Select and Economy Class.

We flew across the North Sea, and followed the English coastline to the Humber estuary, passing The Wash, the Lincolnshire coast, and Spurn Head along the way. We took the typical approach into HUY, turning over Immingham and making a straight-in approach to Runway 21. As we approached, the weather improved and I was treated to nice views of Hull (is there such a thing?), the Humber Bridge, and Thornton Abbey.

Spurn Head, where the Humber meets the North Sea
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Kingston-Upon-Hull, with the Hull-Hoek van Holland P&O Ferry
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Humber Bridge (tough to see)
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Thornton Abbey, founded in 1139 and dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539
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The two things I don’t like about Humberside Airport are the price of parking (it cost £91 for this trip) and the immigration procedure. The airport is so small, that it usually only has one immigration officer, which means all the EU/EEA citizens get processed first and all the others have to wait. Since I’m a US citizen, that means I have to wait. Normally, this wouldn’t bother me so much, but there are always a handful of Chinese, Russian and Ukranian travellers that somehow end up ahead of me in the queue, and they seem to get extra special scrutiny.

Anyway, I was soon through and, since I had no baggage to collect, was in my car and on my way to work within 15 minutes of touchdown.

So, summarising thoughts from the trip. That’s usually the last section of a Trip Report.

Well, instead of writing some witty and lengthy summary, since I’m quite impressed I’ve even gotten this far with my writing, I’ll just list some bullet points with my thoughts.


I cleared security 13 times on this trip, and never once did it take more than 10 minutes or so. Actually, I’d be surprised if I ever waited more than 5 minutes most of the time.
The TSA was almost always very friendly and helpful.
I visited nine lounges with my 90-day WorldClub membership that I wouldn’t have been able to enter had I not purchased it. That works out to under $10 a visit. In my view, that’s pretty good value for the food, booze, and free wifi.
Travelling with a baby can be stressful, but it’s certainly doable and not that bad if you plan ahead.
Avoid transferring between Terminal A and other terminals at IAH if possible. That bus is a real pain.
LAX and ORD are still dumps. No news flash there.
I am going to miss CO as a Skyteam partner. I’m really debating whether to jump ship now.


Mrs. and Baby TrayflowInUK arrived back in the UK a few days after me. They took NW42 MSP-AMS connecting to KL1489 AMS-HUY. Their return was uneventful. A few comments from the Mrs.:

They sat in 1AB. Whilst getting settled after boarding, Mrs. T heard the FAs whispering in the galley as they were looking over the manifest.... "That little baby in 1A... she's a SILVER ELITE!" Mrs. T got a real kick out of this.
The NW flight crew was very nice and friendly.
The breakfast was a fruit bowl and muesli bread roll, with juice and coffee. No comparison to the KL offering.
NW actually catered baby food for the flight, the only airline that did this.
Mrs. T went to the lav, and returned to find the FA sitting in 1B playing with Baby TrayflowInUK.

Anyway, back to me.

When I booked this trip, I thought that doing 16 segments in about as many days would satiate me for a while, but all I can think about now is when I can get back on another aircraft. This addiction shows no signs of abating.

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed this TR as much as I enjoyed flying it. Love to hear your comments!

Splendid reports ^

Enjoyed reading your tales of adventure with and sans baby in tow.

Can't wait to read another one!

zz :)

An outstanding read. Thanks for taking the time to write it up -- it is a lot of work! :-::-::-::-::-:

Our little princess/monster is 3.5 and she's a CO Gold. She even knows which check-in lines to go to in SJO and always tells the line dragon: "Soy oro!" Probably out to video it and YouTube it at least for the FT crowd! :)

This was an excellent trip report with great pictures and detail. I would like to bring your attention to the PDA site for CO (Link (http://pda.continental.com/PDA20/FlightStatusGateInfo.aspx)). At this site you can see a detailed report of what meal you will be served, flight standby lists, seat maps, upgrade standby lists and much more. Enjoy!
Hey, this is great info OPFlyer, thanks for the link. I should have done my research given I had three CO segments! As it happens, on this trip, I never sweated a single upgrade, but info on meals, etc., would have been useful.

Also, thanks for the positive comments 24.05.2004 and aviatorzz. ^ Our little one is on pace for 42k EQM this year, I'm debating whether to send her on a mileage run before her first birthday. :D

After a quick baby change (well, we changed the nappy, not the baby, we like her just fine),

Haven't finished reading the TR yet but this comment just cracked me up :)

Thanks for a very comprehensive trip report.

IND’s still a dump, but at least NW has freshened up the place with new signage. That said, the NW A gates are a painful place to kill 45 minutes.


Fortunately the days of being a dump are almost over. If you come back through here after November 11th you'll get a completely different experience.

This will be the concourse where NW operates in the new terminal.

http://www.newindianapolisairport.com/galleries/Terminal_2008-6-17/June002.jpg

There also will be a significant number of quality eateries on the air side.

I know, I can't wait!!! I've got great expectations for the new midfield terminal. Until now, we've got to suffer though.

The new football stadium is also pretty impressive.

Great report and wonderful photos TrayflowInUK!! ^

Quite impressed by the food served on NW on the domestic flights, it actually looked both filling and appetising, much better than e.g. UA...

I’m a real amateur at Trip Reports, and I haven’t done one in two years, though I’ve started a fair few.
Well you need to start somewhere, my first trip report wasn't exactly brilliant. When you've written a few reports you'll find your own "genre" and have an idea what works well and improvements you can make for future reports.
But quite frankly this report really wasn't amateurish... ;)

Thanks jacob_m, you're too kind!

I had no problem with the meal choices on any of my flights, I was generally quite impressed. Then again, I'm easy to please. On an airplane, if something comes on a plate in front of me and is fairly edible then I'm happy. I found the food quality to be very good on all my flights. For example, I never had as much as one wilted lettuce leaf or fruit that wasn't well-selected or ripened.

Perhaps an unintended consequence of the airlines' belt-tightening this decade is that they've eschewed more innovative and envelope-pushing cuisine for basic comfort food that is not only cheap to serve but serves well.

Was anyone ever able to identify the nighttime view of the city pictured in Post No 15?

Was anyone ever able to identify the nighttime view of the city pictured in Post No 15?

I'm going to say Cincinnati.

Actually I feel pretty sure of it. You can see the river and the two stadiums. The bridges match up as well. You can see I-71/75 on the left side of the left stadium as it crosses the river and then goes a bit further south before curving off to the west. If this isn't Cincinnati then its a dang clone of it. :-)

Yep, definitely Cincinnati, thanks for this Indy! I couldn't figure it out from the air and it was really frustrating me.

Here's the pic I took:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3158/2767313051_764a706e4c_o.jpg

And here's an aerial view courtesy of Google Earth/Sanborn:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3177/2789013638_b4236e60ff.jpg

Great report TraflowInUK ^^. I can't believe I missed this so far.

Outstanding report! (Though have only been able to read parts of it).

In regards to your comment about taking off on 32L at ORD from the T-10 intersection, this is actually very common procedure, particularly for departures from Terminals 1 and 2.