OAK-MCE via Boutique Air
Bear with me folks, this is my first FlyerTalk trip report. And about 11 months delayed, after I originally gave up amid struggles with the photo embedding option.
Anyway, the scenario: HB Junior was off school for a teacher workshop day. Rather than pack him off for a day-long version of the aftercare program, I take a vacation day to waste in the best way — travel for the sake of traveling.
The opportunity: EAS specialist Boutique Air is operating flights from Oakland to Merced, promising a “Fly Private for the Cost of Commercial” experience.
They actually are promoting OAK-LAX through service via MCD, an option a briefly considered earlier this year before deciding to drive. But I digress.
The traveling experience, at least out of Oakland, is a mixture of “just like a big airline” and “not at all like a big airline.”
There is no online check-in — you must present yourselves to the counter in the departures area. In our case, two professional and pleasant young women made sure we were who we said we were, weighed our five pounds of backpack, and printed out a boarding pass. On a late Friday morning, traffic was very light at the Terminal 1 TSA checkpoint, so we were through with plenty of time to spare despite BART delays that had frustrated our journey to the airport.
One thing that various online reviews of Boutique have noted is that it enforces a very firm cut-off time for checking in at the front counter.
The reason why became apparent when the same women who checked us in up front appeared at Gate 8A to handle things from there.
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Gate 8A has a podium, but boarding was one of those “not at all like a big airline” aspects. The path to our Pilatus PC-12 was through an “Authorized Personnel Only” door behind the podium at the next gate, down a service stairway and out to the tarmac, under the supervision of Boutique staff.
It would have been great to take in the scene on the tarmac, except that it was pouring rain.
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Anyway, we board our single-prop craft. (Another “not at all like a big airline” aspect of the “fly private” experience is that everyone had to duck except HB Junior, who is in third grade.)
The total five or six of us were able to sit wherever we wanted in the eight-passenger cabin, no concerns about weight or balance. My son and I got a set of facing seats in the front of the cabin.
It’s comfortable enough, though the 6’7” gentleman on the trip might disagree, given how awkwardly he had to splay his knees.
No flight attendant, but one of the pilots gave us a friendly welcome, offered us soda and peanuts, and gave us a safety demonstration from the Southwest Airlines comedy school. “Smoking is forbidden anywhere on this aircraft, so if you see anyone smoking, please use this fire extinguisher on him.”
The flight itself is ticketed at 25 minutes and the cabin is fairly loud — I had to speak pretty loud to communicate with my son.
With the rainy day, Oakland was operating on a reverse of its normal pattern, so we had a long taxi out to the main runway, then a nice view of the terminals before we were enveloped in clouds.
On an ordinary day, it would have been a pleasant flightseeing trip, but today for the most part the view out the window was clouds until we outran the weather front a few miles north of Merced.
Although we saw a pretty awesome rainbow from on high, so no complaints here.
It was cool to be able to crane my neck to the front and get a behind-the-pilots view of the approach to Macready Field. The landing itself was as soft as melted butter.
The Merced operation was all “not like a big airline.” The staff just walked us around the tiny terminal, through a gate in the chain-link fence, and boom, we were landside at the very sleepy entrance to Macready Field.
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The tall fellow, who was wearing a sportcoat and tie, confirmed that his flight to LA was leaving in six hours. I hope that he planned it that way on purpose. Then he asks the handful of us standing outside, ‘How do I get a taxi?’
There is no taxi rank.
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He appeared to have a smartphone, so I assume he called Uber as we did. There’s not much to do at the airport for six hours.
Fifteen minutes later, we were in a menacing-looking Dodge Charger for a five minute trip to our only Merced destination, the local In-N-Out.
We had a tight turnaround made tighter by our departure delay in Oakland, but In-N-Out went reasonably quickly, allowing us plenty of time for the one-mile walk through a neighborhood that has maybe seen better days to the Merced Amtrak station for the next leg of our journey.
Amtrak’s San Joaquin carries a far higher volume than Boutique Air — we didn’t act quickly enough to get a pair of seats together, and we basically hung out in a cafe car booth until Stockton, when the train emptied out a bit.
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The economics of the day were a bit odd.
The Amtrak ride back to the East Bay for the two of us was only $1.98 cheaper than the flight out — and that’s only because Amtrak charges half-price for kids.
Amtrak’s adult fare, in the lowest fare bucket, was $24 versus $18.99 for Boutique, which is an advance purchase price (but I only bought the tickets a few days ahead).
Anyway, a fun day out for us, and a good way to see California from above and ground level.
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