Premiere Elite - YEG

YEG to Phoenix next week in a US Airways CRJ with one child in lap. How painful is this going to be? Any seat recommendations? Thanks in advance for softening the blow.

As a Canadian, and a frequent flyer, I apologize to you all for the CRJ. I'll take a 20 year old, vibrating, Dash over the RJ any day.

USFlyer26

Apology not accepted!! Kidding aside, your flight is going to suck. I believe YEG-PHX is serviced by a CR9, a horrible plane. Another FT member referred to the CRJ as the "prison ship". As such, the CR9 is just a larger "prison ship". All of the seats on the CR9 make you feel like you're sitting on a park bench. I would definitely call to request row 1 if it already isn't filled, and I'm not sure if they'll put a lap child there or not. 1D and 1F are positioned a few inches farther back from the bulkhead than 1A and 1C, so they have a little more legroom. The only consideration there is that there is no under seat storage for the baby's stuff - it will be in the overhead. One saving grace for these stupid planes are the crews. They're almost always super friendly and helpful - at least in my experiences.

Safe travels.

vincentvan

A someone with Canadian roots (sister and family in Stony Plain!), I can empathize with your sense of guilt. I can remember, I think, my first CRJ experience. It must have been 1996, or so, although the exact year is fuzzy. I was going to visit a friend in N. Ontario. Flew out of BOS. The first leg was BOS-YUL. Well, there sat a brand spanking new AC CRJ in BOS. I can remember thinking to myself, as a real world pilot and a FTer at heart, what a handsome plane. How proud I felt! By the end of the short flight to YUL, my opinion had changed. So, it's not only uncomfortable, it's quickly uncomfortable! The remainder of my trip was all on Dash 8's. YUL-YYO-YUY (Val d'or, Rouyn Noranda). The return trip was a reverse. YUY-YVO-YUL, YUL-BOS all on Dash's. Even the return trip complete with a 3+ hr marathon YUL-BOS run due to WX (including an unplanned stop in BDL to wait it out, where we just sat in the plane) on a Dash 8 was more enjoyable then the CRJ leg. Though, at this point the trip still brings back fond memories.

coachrowsey

The bun buster.

Alphaguy

I think bun buster equals prison ship...

BoeingBoy

It's unfortunate that Bombardier didn't adapt to the changing RJ market as Embraer did with the E-Jet family. Although the CRJ was a nice plane for that market when introduced, it was out-dated in comparison to Embraer's newer product. It looks like Bombardier's plan now is to leapfrog past the RJ market and compete against the big boys with the C-Jet, basically allowing Embraer (and the Russian, Chinese, and Japanese variations of the E-Jet) to have the majority of the 70-100 seat market.

Jim

Premiere Elite - YEG

Boy you didn't lie. Just got back from the trip and I won't be flying on a US Airways RJ ever again. I will route far and wide if necessary to avoid those seats. They need to move some foam from the head rest down.

Row 1 was nice though.

M20009

I try to avoid any Bombardier regional jet regardless of the airline. I always feel like I am sitting ramrod straight or even forward a little bit.