INTRODUCTION-
This trip was to visit my Mom and family in Minnesota. Back in April I had taken a trip with my daughter to show support for my mom who was diagnosed with Stage 3 Breast Cancer. This time my mom had been going thru chemotherapy treatment for a few remaining cancer floater cells. Since that time I’m proud to announce that my mom has been responding well to treatment and looks to dare I say be “cancer free” at the rate she is going. I accompanied her to a couple of her medical appointments and she received a clean bill of health for now.
When I explored the various airfares CO/UA turned out to be more expensive flying into MSP, and the same with FSD. After relentless searching online there was a decent airfare price with DL and I have and account with Dl as well as I do UA/CO. Additionally, I compared the Non-stop flights to MSP, FSD, and ATY. Needless to say that FSD was the lowest price this time and more convenient stop by being a closer drive to my parents in Southwestern Minnesota so I made my decision to fly the SAN-MSP-FSD route.
When I booked this flight I noticed that DL blocks a good chunk of Y class seats when you buy a ticket and this is also true with UA/CO. Part of the reasoning being that they hold extra legroom seats for preferred mileage members however they open up those seats within the last 2-3 hours prior to departure. I haven’t flown with Delta in a couple of years but I suppose they are following another marketing trend.
ARRIVAL-
I arrived at SAN at approximately 5:15 AM +/- for my early morning departure. There was a severe thunderstorm warning in the local area and I wasn’t sure how it would affect the departing flights.
CHECK-IN & SECURITY-
The check-in queue was pretty quick and I was able to make it thru security within 10 minutes. Being a relatively full flight I wasn’t able to change seats to MSP or FSD. I made it thru made my way the elite security line and was thru in 2-3 minutes.
PRE DEPARTURE-
I ordered breakfast from California Pizza Kitchen at the food court in Terminal 2 and went for a shoeshine before finding my gate. When I arrived at the gate everything seemed fine and my flight wasn’t affected by the thunderstorms, and they just started the boarding process. We did leave the gate a few minutes later though due to non weather reasons
Date: Tuesday September 13, 2011
Segment: SAN-MSP
Flight: DL 2176
Registration: N3742C
Load Factor: 100%
Class: Y
Equipment: Boeing 737-832
Cruising Altitude: 37,000 feet
Cruising Speed: 457 kts
Duration: 3 hours 17 minutes
Distance: Direct: Direct: 1,532 sm Flown: 1,676 sm
Departure Gate SAN: Terminal 2 / Gate 41
Arrival Gate MSP: Terminal 1 / Gate C1
Scheduled Departure: 06:30AM PDT
Actual Departure: 06:48AM PDT
Route: PEBLE3 SXC LAX J100 BCE SNY J114 FSD RWF SKETR3
Scheduled Arrival: 11:30AM CDT
Actual Arrival: 12:05PM CDT
Seat: 25A
Route-
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/D...330Z/KSAN/KMSP
Trip Album-
https://picasaweb.google.com/1159879...oMinneapolisMN
TAKEOFF-
Takeoff was smooth but due to the overcast and weather I couldn’t see where we were until 10 minutes afterwards. It was when a few holes in the clouds opened up that I noticed that we were still over the Pacific Ocean. Usually departing flights out of SAN head west over Pacific Beach, the coast, and turn back eastward over Imperial Beach, Tijuana, etc... Looking at the overhead TV’s we were going NNW towards Long Beach and LA. We then turned northeast over LA and in to the desert making our way back to the original flight path.
INFLIGHT-
Service was standard as usual and there were the overhead TV’s for movies. I used the Wi-Fi to track the flight progress on my IPod Touch. Once we reached Nevada the sky cleared up. The remainder of the flight was uneventful.
I was sitting next to a chatty older couple from the Northern San Diego area. It just turned out that they were also from Minnesota/South Dakota and knew of the area in Rural Minnesota I was traveling to so we had a lot in common.
We arrived at MSP with sunny skies and warm weather ande it was time to get to my connecting flight.
To be continued in Part 2...