toastmaster

How are the 90 seat CRJs? I'm coming back to LAX via one from LAS on July 4th.

I used to always have to take the HORRIBLE embraer 145s from RIC to LGA or BOS in order to get direct service. It's a short flight, so I don't care all that much, but I was hoping the larger CRJs were decent.

Robertsonland

Well took my flight in the RJ last night home from Vegas. We had a gate change from B23 to B2 due to aircraft maintenance / flight cancellation on a Reno flight then the RJ was late in arriving and when the last pax walked out the door the guy announced preboard for all Elites and those needing assistance. I was in 15C (Why do they not have a B & E seats? seems odd to go A/C|D/F but oh well). The seat was as hard as a rock as I've heard so I wasn't dissappointed by a moderately comfy seat. 54 Minutes in flight so the computer said and we arrived about 4 minutes before our 8:21p arrival time. Then the captain comes on and says there is a plane in our gate (B11) and the mechanics are going to move it to the hangar. Sat there while they moved it and took it away for 13 minutes. We pulled into the gate at 8:30p and then sat on the plane while they waited for someone to get the door open and get everything going for about 8 minutes. The plane fully emptied and we waited there about another 8 minutes after the plane fully emptied for the first bag to be brought up. Mine was relatively soon after that. Got down to the North Side curb about 9:15p. So basically 45 minutes waiting for bag and walk down to curb. Off a Mainline plane It's usually < 10 minutes for me to walk from the upper A gates to the curb. Overall I was impressed with the service on the plane but after that it pretty much sucked. Don't look forward to 6 weeks of this at all. Hopefuly I can hit the 5:30 flight as the next 2 are RJs now. but I don't make it in until 5:00 if all goes well.

Lance

Edited to correct schedule.

formeraa

Typical Mesa trip. As far as Mesa goes, sound normal to me! You're lucky that you didn't wait 60 minutes for the gate (as I did at OAK one Saturday morning). You're lucky there was an agent at the gate (one time in PHX an agent didn't show up until after the scheduled departure on a flight that was showing ON-TIME on the podium and the monitors). You're lucky that, when the gate change was made, the gate agent didn't blame it on the pilot "pulling into the wrong gate" (as if the pilot just suddenly decided to pull into a random gate that was empty!!!). Welcome to Mesa's World!

Robertsonland

No I felt it was fine up to waiting so long (relatively speaking) for our bags. There was one guy that brought his on and had to about take a crowbar to get it in the overhead but did and had to pry it out as well but he was laughing as he left all of us sitting in the jetway waiting for our bags. I actually thought the flight itself was fine. Not what I was expecting at all from some of the stories on here. If they had our bags a bit earlier I would have been totally satisfied but oh well. I knew the reason for the gate change as I was sitting at the gate when they p'd off all the Reno passengers and cancelled their flight. At least I got home not too long after I was supposed to.

Lance

mallthus

In my experience, the CRJ-900s are much better than the CRJ-200s for overall comfort and for bin size. I don't recall that there were ever F seats on the CRJ-200s and the CRJ--900s weren't really in service with HP (Mesa) before the F seats were ended. The only times I ever saw them (never got to sit in one) was when there were some CRJ-700s in AWE colors for a while.

Anyway, if you're not connecting at either end, these planes empty pretty quickly so being first off's not the advantage it is on an A320 or something. My plan if the flight looks full and I don't need to rush off the plane for a connection is to take one of the very last rows, back by the lav. On the LAS-PHX run, the flight's so short and usually bumpy enough that no one's going to get to use the lav and because these seats have a poor reputation (everyone wants to sit up front) that you'll almost always get an empty seat next to you.

Of course, if it's not full, go for row 2 (which is an Elite only row).

Mallthus