Flying on Unmarked Planes
 

For the second time in as many weeks I have had a flight on an unmarked CoEx flight... of course... operated by the infamous CHQ.

No doubt these planes are in line to be painted... or maybe... just maybe... they are flying incognito so as not to be associated with CO... :cool:

Since those flight are NOT CO on the inside... maybe there is no reason to say CO on the outside... @:-)

They may get painted, they may not. It's Chautauqua, and it's not like they really care. Earlier this year they were flying a plane out of IAH that they had barely scraped the UA Express titles off of. I even heard passengers in the B84 waiting area commenting that CO must be getting really cheap if they were buying second-hand planes from UA and not repainting them.

I've seen that flying LGA-CLE.

white plane with blue tail perhaps?
 

I've previously heard the ground personnel refer these unmarked aircraft as "bluetails," perhaps following the manufacturers' practice of calling aircraft built without customers as "whitetails."

The white body and blue tail remind me of DL markings without the triangle. In March, my CHQ flight had MX, and they pulled a bluetail. Evidently, they had expected that particular aircraft to fly for AA because it had AA magazines and AA napkins.

I would hope it's a sign this POS subsidiary is being sold off.

Maybe they're contracted for extraordinary rendition as well..

Pictures?

I come out of SDF about once a month. It is the headquarters of Republic, the owner of Chautauqua, and the unpainted aircraft with the blue tails are there quite a lot of the time.

At one time they would generally be found at the US gates (after DL ditched them) but maybe US figured that their service was too poor to put their fight numbers on :D and got rid of them and sent them over to the other side for CO to abuse their passengers with. ;)

I took a recent CLE-ORF flight in an unmarked CHQ aircraft. I know CHQ has several unmarkeds to shuttle throughout the fleets of their customers. The aircraft I flew has seen its share of paint jobs:

http://www.airliners.net/search/phot...gsearch=N276SK

Most frustrating was the CHQ seat assignments. At check-in the E145 was listed as A-D-F for seats. Of course the CHQ unmarked that arrived lists seats as A-B-C. Confusing most travelers on board.

Too bad that those magnetic signs (such as used by fly-by-night contractors) don't stick to aluminum.

Even if they did, Republic/Chautauqua would probably be too cheap to buy them.

Shrink wrap the planes with ads!

Person/Pax Of Size ;) Oh, yes, why of course, flew CHQ to Amarillo, remember the caulking in the bathroom and other fine touches :eek: The other definition, of course :D

EmailKid

I have the ultimate horror story involving both definitions of POS at once -- two passengers of size across the aisle from me on a Chautauqua ERJ flying to LBB. She required one seatbelt extension, he really needed two. Both were the type of chain smoker you can smell a mile away, and at times his smoker's cough was so bad I was afraid he was going to die of emphysema before we landed. But not only were these people rather disgusting to sit across the aisle from, due to the smell and constant hacking, choking, and coughing, but the flight attendant let them sit in 12 B and C, the exit row! So while my iPod in the seatback pocket represents a major threat to the safe operation of a Chautauqua regional jet, apparently allowing two people who really need two seats each to wedge themselves into the exit row on the ERJ is perfectly safe and would present no challenges to quickly evacuating the aircraft in the event of an emergency. :rolleyes:

Ah, Lubbock.