Eagle from DCA
 

I thought I would try to take a direct flight dca -grr instead of going through ord (or Dtw in delta)
wow....been standing on a bus over ten minutes waiting to be taken to the plane
no updates, feels like cows being herded
the frustrations are mounting.
never again...not worth saving an hour of flying time

Dramatic much? Gate 35X sucks but 10 minutes in a bus beats a connection any day...

35X is a known pain point for DCA flyers. I've always avoided it, flying out of BWI as an alternative.

That's why this major construction project is happening. It's bad, but surely better than a connection.

One thing I never understood is why they board by group onto the bus. There's no advantage to getting on the bus first. Actually it's best to get on last, which minimizes time on the bus.

Undoubtedly the reason you're stuck standing there is they are paging the last passenger or two that has not boarded yet.

So, next time just wait until they say "final boarding call". And as others have mentioned, it's still better than a connection.

They hold the bus until t-10 unless every passenger is on.

It looks like this morning's flight arrived into GRR 13 minutes early. I would hardly call that a bad experience.

Yeah, that's strange, but I guess they're just following the standard procedure and treating it like any other gate.

The bus is among the least pleasant aspects of US air travel I experience. There's nothing quite like flying business class back from Europe and ending the final leg on the bus.

Reminds me of my DCA-JFK flt last July. We promptly were loaded onto the bus at 30min mark, crammed about 40 of us in there in a good 5 minutes, then stood packed on this hot bus for quite awhile. People were getting extremely ticked off as we then stood waiting for the last few people for at least 15 minutes as the bus was heating up more and more. We've all seen how ticked off some NYers can get, and there was a few that got off and were screaming at the guys who help watch you to make sure you get onto the bus. Then to make matters better, we start off toward our plane, and with 0 word at all we drive around the planes, and head back to the gates. There we were promptly offloaded and finally told it had maintenance. Really is a pathetic set-up that I am shocked is still around.

Interesting, since I've found remote bus gates far more prevalent outside the US (and often used for much larger aircraft than regional jets).

35X is truly awful. A few years ago, we were all boarded onto a bus, but the bus was held for 40 minutes because a plane was pushing from gate 35 next door. I have absolutely no idea what caused the delay to be that long, but it was. There was also no working AC on the bus that day (this was before the newer, current generation of buses were deployed). I nearly missed my connection in PHL (we're talking by a matter of minutes) as a result. It was after that experience that I swore I would avoid Air Wisconsin and any encounter with gate 35X ever again, including connecting in any other city just to avoid it.

Exactly. 35X is awful, but it's a known quantity of awful. And it's going away.

I sympathize. Gate 35X can be a pretty dysfunctional setup.

And unless people complain, to the point of booking away from AA, where's the push to change? On the other hand, perhaps better a bus gate than no gate (and service) to these destinations at all.

Let's hope the new design is a winner.

My point was not that it is not common outside the US, but that inside the US there is little that I experience in the US that is quite like 35X. There are long walks and crappy terminals, but the crappy terminal (downstairs at 35X) plus the often funky bus ride is special here.

I suppose, but it's a bit tautological to say that a bad feature of one airport is unlike any other. With apologies to Tolstoy, every unhappy airport is unhappy in its own unique way. There may be nothing quite like 35X at DCA, and in the same vein there's nothing quite like the horrid IAD "mobile lounges," the haphazard bus-connected terminal layout at LHR, the perennial "labor disputes" at CDG, the "orange shirts" at PHL, or the 7 terminals connected by a traffic jam at LAX.