Preface

So I am pushing to 1K by segments. I booked all my travel through the rest of the year and I would have been at about 62 segments – so I decided, for the SWUs, CR1s and confirmed same-day standby I would press to 1K by segments. In fact, the latter reason is probably one of the biggest because I am constantly flying standby out of Vegas. I like to book a later flight than I usually take because it is normally a little cheaper than the flights in the 2-6pm range and then if I am done with work I just leave work to the airport. The ability to call from my desk at work and be confirmed on this earlier flight would be very nice.

So I needed 38 segments and I had a decent amount of time to do it. The only problem is that most of my weekends were booked with the fiancée in Orange County so now my free weeks I’d have to Segment Run. In addition, I’d want to leave a few weeks at the end of the year to make a quick run in case of WX or other cancelations on the segments.

I actually did my first SR last weekend on Saturday from SNA when I was at my fiancée’s house because she had to work on Saturday. I did a quick SNA-SFO-SMF-SFO-LAX-SNA trip (about 11 total hours), however, even that got interesting because of the first leg of the flight being cancelled due to weather. I am still curious about the cancelation because it was cancelled due to “weather” 18 hour prior. Regardless, no biggie – I just lost my F seat on SNA-SFO and my exit row on the Brazzy SFO-SMF for an exit row on SNA-LAX and an RJ segment from SMF-LAX.

So this weekend was my first big weekend. I have 8 segments on Saturday and another 5 on Sunday. I leave Vegas both days at 6am and get back in just before midnight. I debated booking the 8 segment trip on Saturday vs. the 7 segment trip in this MR discussion thread here and just decided to do the 8. Worst case it was $3 more (segment taxes) and I end up with 7 segments if there are Irr-ops.

For my routing info on Saturday I am on: LAS-SFO-ONT-LAX-SBP with a 20 minute turn (same aircraft) to SBP-LAX-ONT-SFO-LAS. This is 8 segments: 2 on Ted A320s, 2 on CRJ200s (mine, and most peoples, most hated equipment UA flies) and 4 Brazzy EMB120 segments. I am in the “real” exit row, row 9, on all the Brazzys and my normal TED seat of 4C on the TED segments. On the CRJ I am in whatever seat looked like there wouldn’t be anyone next to me . FYI, all layovers are at least an hour with the exception of the SBP turn, but since it is on the same airplane I am not concerned at all.

Thankfully the weather today looks lovely – at least out west. On Friday I had great plans to get a nice good night sleep so I would be overly tried on the run, but I got a call at 7pm that my buddies softball team needed a player at 8, so I decided to play and didn’t get home until about 1030. After getting a few things together and charging all the necessary electronics I was in bed at a little past 11 with the alarm set for 5am.
And let me tell you that 5am came quickly. After getting up and having a quick glass of water and checking flyertalk real quick (hey you can never miss a good mistake fare) I headed to the airport at 515am for my 610pm departure to SFO.

Let me tell you guys I love being about 4 miles off final for 25L at LAS. It means I can get to the airport at this time of the morning in about 8 minutes (and about 12 minutes normal times). On the way to the airport I called LAS parking to see what was open in hopes that the “overflow” lot was open. The overflow lot is free and is not much more of a ride on the shuttle bus than the economy lot – however, the overflow was not open so I was out of luck.

After parking, taking the shuttle and getting to the airport at about 5:40 I meet MrpAlert to head through the D gates security. Security took a grand total of about 2 minutes from when I got my ticket checked to when I was through the scanner with all my belongings back together. However, I had to give MrpAlert a hard time because it took him nearly 4 minutes to clear.

After a quick tram ride to the D gates and a quick conversation with MrpAlert, I hear my name called from gate D37 to board the plane. On MrpAlert’s phone we looked up the loads on LAX-ONT at 11am, but with it showing only Y1 this foiled my plans to try to hop on the flight with MrpAlert to LAX at 620am. Looking at my watch and seeing 5 till 6 I decided it was time to board and wished MrpAlert a good trip to LAX (and then TUS) for the MR seminar that VJ is putting on.

LAS-SFO, A-320, N453UA, Seat 4C
Scheduled Departure Time: 0610, Departure Time: 0614
Scheduled Arrive Time: 0734, Arrival Time: 0725

After being paged I gave the GA my boarding pass and he said, “He knew I’d show up.” I told him I was a local and knew when I needed to leave my house to get to the airport. He looked at my BP and saw I was a 1P and thanked me for my business and told me that it was people like me that made the airline run. It was really thoughtful and I want to give a shout out to “Henry” at LAS for his kind remarks.

Getting on the airplane it was a bit more full than I thought for a 6am out of LAS on Saturday morning. Now, I am not saying it was super full, most middles were open – but I suspected that it was going to be more than ½ of E+ open. Regardless, I didn’t have anyone next to me and it made for a very comfortable ride to SFO.
After the normal safety video and pushback I tuned into Ch. 9 to listen to ATC and was quite surprised. If you ever get to listen to ATC in LAS at 610am you will see what I mean. I am so used to LAS being so busy, however, no one was really squawking. In fact we were the only plane that I heard ATC talking to from pushback, taxi and takeoff. Quite unusual, but due to the low traffic we were airborne just 4 minutes after our scheduled departure time.

The purser quoted flight time at a long 1 hour 15 minutes. I heard nothing interesting from ATC. We had the normal 25R departure and then we got clearance direct to Modesto. At one point we got handed off to a center than I had never heard of. It was Joshua center and by the communications between the Pilot and ATC I assume it might have been in NTTR airspace or the corridor just West of NTTR (and East of the Ft. Irwin range). The pilot did ask the ATC controller if they would be “open for business” in two hours because they were headed back and the controller replied that he had no guarantees because he didn’t know when the military or which planes would show up.

The flight overall had great service with quick beverage service where I had a water and black coffee. I finished both because the forward FAs were done with row 11, and they refilled both on the way back to the front. So I guess those “small cups” don’t matter when you get a good FA and can have it refilled.
The flight was a bit turbulent at times. It seemed like FL340 was the best altitude to be at, but out of LAS until about 8500 was steady moderate turbulence and the climb through FL300 was light to moderate turbulence.
Into SFO I was also surprised that the pilot had the runway in sight at over 30 miles out. This is when we were cleared for landing on runway 28R. We touched down at 0725 beating our quoted flight time b y four minutes and arrived at the gate just about 3 minutes later.

SFO Airport

After deplaning at the normal TED gate of 74 I decided to give MrpAlert a call to see if I beat him in landing. I didn’t but we had a decent conversation until he realized that he left his rollerboard on the aircraft. Good news was he got it back. Passing by the main security area I decided that a smoke wouldn’t be a good option because it was a mad house. Is it too much to ask to have smoking areas in airports? I choose my normal connecting airports based on the available smoking areas (i.e. LAX over SFO).

I needed to find an EasyChicken to get my return boarding passes. I was already checked in, but didn’t check in at work (and I prefer real boarding passes anyway because I keep the stubs) so I didn’t have a printer to print off the passes. After finding a chicken near gate 81 I couldn’t print passes for the return flights, all it would let me do is print them for the outbound flights. However, since I was at a Customer Service Center and there was no line I went to the agent to get the boarding passes. This really shouldn’t have been a hard task but it took the agent almost 5 minutes to print out the return passes. I would hate to see how long a real problem would have taken the one agent to fix. Anyway, I actually had a good conversation with the agent (she was a very nice lady, just not well trained) – she made a comment about all these flights in one day and I said I liked to fly. She said that was cool and gave me props on finding the fare that I did at the low cost.
After the meeting with the agent I went ahead and filled up my water bottle with water (since I forgot to do that in Vegas) and sat down by gate 82, plugged in the laptop and worked on this report. I guess this would be a good time to discuss what I take with me on Mileage/Segment Runs.

I have seen many threads about what people take with them and most “novice” runners want to bring everything they can think of. I have seen lists that would fill a whole roller-board and a backpack. This, IMHO, is way more stuff that you need. To start with let me discuss bag. I have a Samsonite Computer roller board that I picked up at Office Max for a respectable $80. It fits in all overheads, including a “tight fit” on a CRJ200 (this is key). It had 3 main pockets with zippers (on the top of the bag) and then one front pocket with areas for pens, cell phones, cards, etc. One of the pockets is actually for clothes and would probably fit two days of clothes if you were stingy with what you packed – perfect for a weekend overnight trip. The middle pocket is for the laptop with a separate flap to insert the laptop and then 3 Velcro pockets for items. The last pocket is for files, and has three separate compartments. The front pocket is has 3 pen slots, one more Velcro pocket, three business card slots, one clip for a key ring and plenty of room for other “junk”. But here is how I pack the bag for a MR:
1) Front Pocket: 3 Pens in the pen slots – my wallet and cell phone in the Velcro pocket, my car keys clipped to the clip and my 1K drink chits in the business card slots. I also put my chap stick, Dramamine and pain pills in here.
2) File Folder Pocket: One DVD of a TV series (this provides multiple hours of watching and you only need one DVD case), a spreadsheet (printed out) timetable of all the cities that I am flying through incase of Irr-ops, a printout of my current (and future) itineraries and a few sheets of paper for writing on (I like to track my flights for FlightMemory).
3) Main CPU Pocket: In one of the Velcro pockets I have Smokes and Matches, another pocket has my camera battery charger and cell phone charger, the last pocket is currently not in use. The CPU goes in the CPU flap.
4) Clothes Pocket: This has a few clothes, normally (and in this case) a change of underwear, socks and a new shirt. I also put my digital camera, CPU charger and my Bose QC3 Headphones (with a Nano and USB charger in the outside pocket of the headphone case) in here.

The only other thing I carry is a one liter bottle to fill with water (empty through security). This is because I hate paying for water, but it also keeps the cost per mile (or segment) down just a tad. Also, water is critical when you are running. Not only is it more exercise than most people get when they sit on a desk all day, it is also drier on planes than most people are used to (but not too bad for someone from Vegas) so it is critical to stay hydrated when you fly. I naturally drink a lot of water, so these numbers may seem high to most of you, but I try to drink a liter of water every flight (or on a segment run, about one per 2-3 hours).

So after sitting down and catching up with this report I had about 15 minutes to kill before my light to ONT boarded. I looked at some standby options for the trip home (to get me home a little earlier) on my United PC TravelDesk program on my computer but my plan of going through either FAT or PSP home was foiled by the Saturday schedule. I also looked for a McDonalds, but none was to be found. There is just too many “high class” eateries in SFO for me – I’m a simple guy and when I want breakfast I want my Egg McMuffin .

After a quick walk from Gate 82 to 77A I was ready to board to ONT. At the ticket counter I noticed the paint scheme on the Airplane wasn’t either UA or the traditional SkyWest paint – instead it was a white scheme and the CRJ had winglets. I have never seen a UA CRJ200 with Winglets so I was hoping they had some an equipment swap into a 700 and I could get E+. On one of the video monitors behind the GAs it said the plane had economy plus seating so this really got me excited. But after asking the GA he informed me this was wrong and not the case. Too bad.

SFO-ONT, CRJ-200, Nyyyxx, Seat8B
Scheduled Departure Time: 0903, Departure Time: 0915
Scheduled Arrive Time: 1021, Arrival Time: 1014

It was nice to board the CRJ in SFO from a Jetway that is a big plus and one of the reasons I used to love connecting in DTW, because their concourse C had Jetways for all small aircraft (Saabs and RJs), but on the same hand I love walking on the tarmac and boarding the “old fashioned” way.

Quickly after I got on the plane I noticed the Delta Connection cloths on the headrests. I got settled in 8B (exit row with maybe 1.5 inches more legroom) and I noticed no one was going to be next to me. After going the W/B calculations the FA made an announcement for 6 people in rows 1-4 to move behind row 5. A couple got up from row 2 and walked back towards the back and the FA asked me if I minded sitting in the empty 8C (8D was occupied) and I said I minded. Perhaps that was a dick-ish move, but after I explained to her that as a 1P I liked the exit row block and I did not want to give up the empty seat she understood my reasoning (more than just not wanting someone sitting next to me). In fact, row 8 on the RJ is really no better than any other, besides that row 7 can’t recline so the only reason I book row 8 is because only 1P and above can book it before day of departure – thus the normal result is that it goes out with an empty seat next to me.
After we got the W/B issues figured out we pushed back on time. The pilot announced flight time at a brisk 47 minutes. After an on time pushback we taxied out to runway 1L for a take off about 10 minutes later.

Once airborne it was a nice ride at FL270, just normal RJ “chop”, with a nice beverage service. The only issue I really had with the flight was the fact that my window did not have a shade to put down thus making me increase the brightness on the CPU monitor to make up for the sunlight coming in. No biggie, because I wasn’t going to run out of battery on a 47 minute flight, but would have been annoying on a longer flight or if I didn’t have a layover of 1+ hour in ONT. During the flight I just watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and I was glad the seat in front of me couldn’t recline because there was plenty of room for the laptop.
We landed in ONT on the normal runway 25R at 1014am. This was over the quoted flight time by about 10 minutes – I’m not sure why they were so off.

ONT Airport

Soon after landing I tried to get the tail number for the SkyWest jet I just flew on but I still couldn’t see it, all I could find was a number under the left front pitot tube of 7101 (or 7107 maybe). If anyone has any help to figure out the Registration Number of this bird please do help.

Since I had a 1h45m layover in ONT and I would be on 4 flights between noon and 5, I decided that finding some food would be a good thing. After walking Terminal 2 for a while I decided food would not come cheap and went to Carl’s Jr. and got the cheapest thing on the menu to try to hold me over until I could get to some sort of Lounge. I picked up a Spicy Chicken Sandwich for about $1.80 and it was much bigger than I suspected it would be. It was a good find, the size of all the normal burgers, for about ½ the cost.

After eating I decided to clear security and sit outside – have a smoke, some water and catch up on this trip report. The weather here is very nice right now, probably high 70s or lower 80s with the sun brightly shining and hardly a cloud in the sky. Something cool about ONT for people with pets, there is a pet area right next to me on the west side of Terminal 2 as well as a large grass field. It’s always nice to see certain amenities at airports and even the smaller things really make a big difference sometimes.

After a second smoke at about 1115 I decided to head about through security but because it was “amateur hour” at the x-ray machines it actually took like 15 minutes to get through, so it thwarted my attempt to watch an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Instead I just charged the laptop for a bit.

The inbound aircraft arrived at the gate right on time at 1135 and SkyWest did their usual quick 20 minute turn of the Brazzy. This is the perfect time for a layover on a segment run – it provides ample time in case of delays and if there is none then it provides more than enough time to head out of the terminal, walk around and get some fresh air.

I do love the quick turns on the Brazzy. When people don’t realize that boarding really doesn’t start until like 15 minutes prior you always get people running up a good 20-25 minutes prior to departure thinking they are missing the flight (especially if the aircraft is at the gate). These running people provide amble entertainment for waiting in the gate area.