Terminal 4 at FLL serves Spirit Airlines, CanJet, Air Transat, Avianca, Caribbean Airlines, and SkyBahamas Airlines. For all intents and purposes, this is the main international terminal at FLL, until T5 is complete.

I entered Terminal 4 at about 4:40 AM EST today, and I quickly got the impression that most of the people passing through the terminal didn't want to be there: mostly everyone was sleeping or looking dreary. Only two stores were open at the moment, a mom-and-pop souvenir/convenience store and a no-name Coffeeshop. To my great surprise, the convenience store had my favorite type of crisp, Lulu Madurito Sweet Plaintain Chips. I purchased two bags and I 48-once bottle of Coca-Cola, not buying anything more for fear for liquids being confiscated by the TSA.

There was no "Big Front Seat Priority Check-in" but it didn't matter anyway because there was ten open kiosks, but I was unsure where the ticketing agents were to check bags, but that again was moot because I only had my JanSport backpack...On Spirit's website they claim that printing your boarding pass at the airport would incur a fee of $10 USD. Inputting my reservation, the boarding pass printed with no request for any payment method. It also asked me if I wanted to buy checked bags for $40? No thanks...


Spirit Airlines Check-in area and kiosks at FLL Terminal 4.


Promiscuous Kiosks.


Across the hall, the Caribbean Airlines Check-in. AFAIK the Business J Class seats are modified American Airlines AA Domestic First seats. Still, I would like to try their J class one day.

After I had a half bag of maduritos and finishing my Coke bottle, I got into the TSA line along with a few other young adults, with two elderly couples directly in front of and behind me. TSA opened at about 4:48 AM EST and we all started to show our ID's and boarding passes. Next, the nudoscope - but wait! - before we were nudoscoped, we had to show our boarding pass to be let into the machine. The woman behind me apparently had something against the regulations in her bag which slowed down the process. She wasn't aware that you couldn't bring bottles of any kind of liquid through the TSA checkpoint and had her Paul Mitchell confiscated.

I slipped my flip flops back on and walked down the large indoor incline to Concourse H of FLL Terminal 4. None of the shops were open except for the FLL-obligatory CNN NewStand retail store. The rest, including a duty free liquor/tobacco/souvenir store, Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs, Dunkin Donuts, and Lauderdale News were all closed. There were vending machines, but one of them had an interesting malfunction....


Walking down to Terminal 4, Concourse H at FLL, mainly used by Spirit and Sunwing Airlines (Canada).


Departures/Arrivals board on the early morning of February 17, 2014.


Looks like the coast is clear for my flight to be right on time.



N612NK, today's ship to Orlando, an Airbus A320-200 built in 2012. Very new compared to some other airlines' planes. Apologies for the bad picture, the glare on the terminal windows from the celing floodlights was terrible.


Concourse H as in "Henry"


Gate H5 for today's flight to Orlando MCO International Airport.


Big Front Seat First Class Boarding Pass, with scratchy red TSA pen marks.


Gate H5 Closeup with the desk and boarding agent, who kindly stepped out of the way so I could get a good picture.

Around 5:40 AM EST today, the gate agent called all passengers seated in rows 30 and higher--apparently, the flight was empty and the aircraft needed to be in tune with proper weight and balance measures. The gate agent made it clear that no one could move up to an exit row or Big Front Seat because they were all full. At 6:00 AM EST today, Zone # 1, passengers with disabilities and/or small children were called to board. Since there was only about four of those passengers, I requested to board with them, to which the gate agent obliged. Thank you gate agent!


Walking down the jetway to the ship.


Boarding.


Behold the Spirit Big Front Seat! Large headrest, superb recline, massive center console, and plenty of width.


Excellent legroom.


I had grabbed a tasty ham, turkey, cheese, and pickle sandwich on Cuban Sweet Bread from Dunkin Donuts in case the flight didn't have th buy on board service.


About halfway through the boarding process, the sky was starting to turn blue as the sun rose.


I couldn't see the engine nacelle that well, so for window shots I just used the wingtip.

Ryan the Flight Attendant welcomed all the passengers aboard. I was too busy taking pictures and exploring the seat to talk to him at that moment, though, I would end up conversing with him much more later in this journey. I tried to recline my seat using the silver button, but it wouldn't work. I was about to call Ryan over when I saw the problem: there was a terribly obese passnger in the Y row directly behind me who was begging the flight attendant to be let into the three free Big Front Seats for free. When Ryan didn't agree, the passenger started to verbally berate Ryan, until an armed Broward County Sheriff and two TSA agents came down the jetway and basically told him to be quiet or leave. That was certainly interesting.

Shortly after that fiasco, at about 6:56 AM the jetbridge pulled back and the pushback tug moved us into position to make a straight taxi to Runway 10L for an easterly takeoff. Caramel sunlight glazed the cabin walls as we crawled down the taxiway, which made for interesting photos as the cabin lights were turned off.

For those who do not know, FLL has three runways: 10L/28R is the longest at 2,743M/9,000 feet, 10R/28L which is parallel to the former at 1,608M/5,276 feet long, and the soon to be decommissioned runway 13/31 which runs cuts right through the two parallel runways at 6,930 feet, used to be used for crosswind landings, but now is closed and is in the process of being transformed into a taxiway.

10R/28l and 13/31 are both closed, meaning that all traffic has to share 10L/28R, which creates a couple of problems. First and foremost, a traffic jam, and secondly, there's only two ways to come in if local weather conditions deteriorate while enroute or are already dangerous.

Runway 10R/28L is currently undergoing an extension to "accommodate larger aircraft in the 'wake' of the opening of the new, larger INTL Terminal" according to Broward county. To me, their expansion process looks like a large mound of dirt....but this isn't the first time Broward has done that.....




Pushback. The moon was still visible against a spectacular rainbow sunrise.


Taxi 1.


Conviasa, a Venezuelan Airline, contracts their CRJ maintenance to the FLL Bombardier Learjet Service Center.


Taxi 2.


ILS Tower, which was erected very recently in order to protect the ILS box (the red/white checkered box under the circular roof) from storm damage and to increase its range. By doing this, they have created an interesting looking arrangement of radar randomes in a circle.