Hi Everybody!
I felt like contributing a FR to this community once again and since I don’t fly that often anymore, I browsed through my library and found enough images to make a FR of an old journey I did. Now, I have to admit: These images were never intended to be used in a Flight Report so the quality is sometimes low, but I still found it worth contributing because of these facts:
a) This was (business-wise) one of the best trips I ever made
b) I flew our of Washington National Airport which I believe is one of the prettiest airports around
c) The weather was bright & clear, so enough opportunities to shoot some nice pictures.
My routing was as follows:
9-feb-2014 / AMS-IAD / KL651 / A332 / J (not reported, not enough images)
11-feb-2014 / DCA-OMA / DL5658 / ERJ135 / Y (this report)
13-feb-2014 / OMA-ATL / KL6347 – DL1582 / MD90 / Y (not reported)
13-feb-2014 / ATL-AMS / KL622 / A332 / J (not reported, not enough images)
Now, this flight is listed in my itinerary of that time as "CHAUTAUQUA DBA DELTA CONNECTION". It was a Delta a/c and crew as far I as I could see, so I guess it's a regional subsidiary of Delta?
I have no pictures on the cabin and interior, but a lot on our take-off and descent. I hope this lives up to the high quality of reporting I see around here, as all pictures were made with my old iPhone 4S. So if this is sub-standard, please let me know.
At the end, I have some pictures on my AMS-IAD flight as well as some pictures of my stay in DC, still my favorite city in the US and my stay in Omaha (NE).
So much for the introduction, let’s kick it off!
The architecture of Washing National / Reagan airport is just stunning. I don't know what it is, I just love this style.
Check-in counters:
Because we were in a group of 4, we did not visit the lounge (don't know even if there is one) as I was the only one FB Gold.
Some shops:
DCA is used as a regional airport and does not serve international destinations (maybe Canada, but certainly not Europe). As a consequence, you only see US carriers here, mainly AA and DL:
Our bird for today: An Embraer. It just looks so funny, small plane, relatively large jetway:
The plane was really comfortable. We were warmly greeted by DL FAs and shown our seats. Sorry, I don't remember my seat but it was on the port side of the plane. My friend, who was on the starboard side, made a nice movie of the take-off. Now, for DCA, you have to know: You can take-off either roughly to the south or to the north. To the south is not that interesting, but if you take-off to the north, you cross the lawn and have a beautiful view on all the landmarks there.
Guess what, we were lucky that day! You can see the Jefferson memorial, Washington memorial, White House and Lincoln memorial. The reflecting pond (remember the Forrest Gump scene?) was drained, I guess for maintenance.
Funny is that whenever I stay in DC, I stay in a hotel called the "Holiday Inn @ Key Bridge" in Arlington and it's right beneath the approach for DCA. The bar on the 17th floor has spectacular view on planes taking off and landing – and now i was in one of them, although I doubt if anybody was drinking G&Ts there judging by the time of the day…
Apart from the video, we made some "normal" photo's too. I think you can see Capital building in these images:
View on DC:
Jefferson memorial and "the Needle". White house is barely visible:
The lawn and Lincoln memorial:
I love this shot. You can see that the reflecting pond has been drained. Oh well:
Downtown DC:
The Key Bridge, leading from my hotel to Georgetown, a nice town close to DC:
Cathedral:
And so we flew west, heading towards Nebraska. You can see the snow rolling in:
Not many people out here.
Clouds rolling in
And we start our approach into Omaha on time:
A southwest B737 brings some color to this colorless place:
We touched down on time. Regarding inflight service & entertainment, even though it is a while ago, I remember the delta service being good but nothing special. Standard american coffee (which sucks, sorry to say so) and cookies. Nothing special. FA was friendly, the plane had a light load, around 40% so she spent most of here time reading a magazine.
OMA is a small airport, nothing special to say on that. We went through quite quickly.
*** SOME BONUS IMAGES ***
If you ever do make it out to Omaha, there's not a whole lot to do there. But, I can definitely recommend going to the Upstream brewery for some real nice beer and to go to a restaurant and buy an Omaha prime, by far the best steak I ever had!
Here are some images from my DC visit. The same Key Bridge, but this time seen from my hotel. The Holiday Inn is a nice hotel, a bit dated, but the location is fantastic.
Not-so-great image of my room. Lower left you can see the packaging material for some toys I bought for my kids in the Disney Store in Tysons Corner Mall. For some reason, we don't have those items here in Europe.
Not-so-great image of the lobby:
Still impressive and mighty: The Lincoln memorial
And as promised, some images of my KL651 AMS-IAD flight. These are all I have so hardly enough to warrant a FR, but I hope you enjoy them anyway. The a/c was an A332 (with the NEV3 like seats) and I was in row 1. Nice diameter on the IFE:
Some champagne? yes please!
Main course, don't remember what it was, but it was great:
White chocolate to wash it all away:
I made a bit of a mess of my seat
So that's it, I hope you enjoyed this FR of a flight I still remember very fondly! Please let me know what you think!
-CS
Thanks for sharing this retro report from my home airport :-)
Yes, it is a beautiful airport--one thing that's NOT beautiful are the horrendous security lines at peak times.
This was back in the day when I was a SkyTeam Elite+ and flying mostly DL. I was always happy with DL, but the SkyMiles program was awful so I had to leave. Thanks for taking me down memory lane to my Delta days!
I remember that when we passed through, we almost had no security problems. But I can imagine that if the airfield is crowded, there's little room to stow all the passengers. Thanks for your reply!
Thanks for sharing! I used to fly Chautauqua all the time out of IAH when they did routes for Continental Express, many good memories! By the way, Chautauqua doesn't exist anymore :(
To answer your question, a lot of the regional jets for the Big 3 are operated by regional airlines operating the flights on behalf of AA, DL, or CO/UA. This is cheaper for DL than using a DL plane/crew since they don't have to hire as many pilots/FAs who are really expensive and unionized. It's all cost cutting.
DCA has one of the most beautiful airport architectures in the US. The departures are always excellent along the Potomac.
If you ever do make it out to Omaha, there's not a whole lot to do there.
- They have a really good zoo and are the home of the College World Series! And if you make the short trip out, there is the Strategic Air & Space Museum, which is really good.
- By the way, Chautauqua doesn't exist anymore :( - I didn't know that. As said, this was a new experience to me.
- This is cheaper for DL than using a DL plane/crew since they don't have to hire as many pilots/FAs who are really expensive and unionized. It's all cost cutting. Didn't know that either. Always wondered what made these airlines different from proper Delta flights. As said, I didn't notice any difference. In fact, when I first wrote the report I credited the flight to Delta because the DL flight number. It wasn't until later when I retrieved my itinerary from by booking agency that I found out that it was in fact Chautauqua Airlines.
- They have a really good zoo and are the home of the College World Series! And if you make the short trip out, there is the Strategic Air & Space Museum, which is really good. I should have known that! Thanks for the advice! Too bad I missed the Air & Space museum...