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Pro and college sports teams - how do they travel to games?

Pro and college sports teams - how do they travel to games?

Old Nov 10, 2007, 5:02 pm
  #16  
 
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I worked at the airport for an airline during summer..up until last week and i saw all the college football teams pass through like USC and Oregon every saturday..taking up the security checkpoint..actually USC chartered delta song...which was boarding at the gate next to one i was working out of.
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Old Nov 10, 2007, 5:46 pm
  #17  
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My college wrestling team always traveled by charter. Only one problem: it was a chartered bus.
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Old Nov 11, 2007, 7:04 am
  #18  
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When I was working for CO I used to see a few of the Houstom teams flying commercial. On one IAH-MIA flight, my boss and I wondered why we didn't get upgraded, as F had shown empty a few hours before flight time. As we boarded, we realized that the Rockets were occupying just about every seat in F. Back in Y, the head coach, Rudy Tomjonavich, was seated by himself in the row opposite us - he lifted the armrests and sat sideways, as he had to have been at least 6'8" if not taller.
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Old Nov 11, 2007, 10:50 pm
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When i used to take the last ORD-ROC flight of the day all the time I used to see many a college sports team waiting for connections to all the o&d outstations at the end of the night at ORD. I believe it's the White Sox that take a UA charter out of MDW - was talking to an FA one night and she mentioned they ferry a mainline plane ORD-MDW (this was in the TED MDW days) for this.
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Old Nov 11, 2007, 11:09 pm
  #20  
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I've slummed it in AZ Economy on MXP-SKG with the basketball team of Aris Thessaloniki, who I do despise but are one of Europe's best (across the continent, only 4-5 countries take basketball seriously, and they have 3-4 decent teams each). There were a dozen fans of them and a similar amount of sports journos, too.
I think very few teams of any sport anywhere have the financial prowess to own a plane. If it's a very important game and/or they have enough (and wealthy enough!) travelling fans, they'll charter some clapped out 737-200; otherwise it's commercial flying or, worse still, a bus!
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Old Nov 12, 2007, 9:14 am
  #21  
 
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I once had the misfortune of boarding a flight out of IND on the day that the NFL combine was wrapping up. It was amazing to watch as some of the biggest people I have ever seen tried to squeeze themselves into coach seats. At first I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on, but then my seatmate explained who all these giants were! Luckily I was only going as far as ORD.
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Old Nov 13, 2007, 10:50 am
  #22  
 
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I've seen lots of college athletes on commercial flights, basketball, football (from smaller schools), hockey, track, etc. Although, I'm sure they bus to shorter destinations.

About five years ago, I was on a mid-morning flight out of CMH, and noticed about 30-40 of some of the largest people I'd ever seen milling all around the B concourse. After a few minutes, I realized that the WWF had an event in town the night before, and all the wrestlers were now flying back home. It was really funny to see all those guys and gals out of character.
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Old Nov 13, 2007, 12:56 pm
  #23  
 
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Makes you wonder how some of these 7-foot giants fit into the head.
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Old Nov 13, 2007, 1:09 pm
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Originally Posted by Doctor Who
Makes you wonder how some of these 7-foot giants fit into the head.

The same way they fit into their Ferraris. Lots of squeezing.
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Old Nov 13, 2007, 1:28 pm
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My neighbour is an FA for the Toronto Raptors...

...and they charter an Air Canada A320 I think, that has been set up as all J seating for the season. The folks had Scotty Pippen as a next door neighbour one time when they stayed at the Westin in San Antonio. He told them that NBA has a contract with certain hotels and they supply extra long beds (according to him just an extension on the end of the normal box spring) as part of the contract.
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Old Nov 13, 2007, 2:01 pm
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Old Nov 13, 2007, 6:18 pm
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Mr. Cynnamin was on a Southwest flight from SNA to SJC with the Oakland Raiders players. The players were returning from a funeral of one of the players who died at the training camp. It was a late flight, so SJC was pretty empty. Pretty funny to see very slim Mr. Cynnamin walk out with these huge football players.
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Old Nov 14, 2007, 2:23 am
  #28  
 
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I once took a Frontier flight ABQ-DEN that turned out to be the "return" leg of a charter for a college football team coming in to play UNM. Watching from the gate, the pax from the charter never entered the airport--charter buses came out onto the tarmac, and they deplaned down stairs and went directly onto the buses.

I've seen plenty of college teams on regular flights, but I think D-1 football is somewhat of an exception. College hoops squads are small enough that scheduled flight services make sense.
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Old Nov 14, 2007, 4:49 am
  #29  
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this could explain why DELTA is often announced on TV games as the official airline of the Boston Red Sox.
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Old Nov 14, 2007, 9:06 am
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I know the Spurs, Lakers, and Sonics all fly specially configured Champion Air 727s.
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