Greetings and welcome to another flight report! Today I'll be flying American Eagle from DCA to PHL. The whole ticketing process of this reservation was awful as I had two seperate schedule changes, resulting in a very long layover in PHL on my way to EDI. I got 7,500 AAdvantage miles in compesation valued at $105. I arrived at the airport relatively a little early. After dropping my bags and heading through the security checkpoint, I headed straight to the American Tap Room, which is a Priority Pass Restaurant. Due to that, I am entitled to a $28 credit for me and up to two guests. I genrally don't eat in airport restaurants if I can help it as I'm not that trusting of the quality. For that reason, I just stuck to drinks-a coffee and a bloody mary. When I presented my Priority Pass card, the server encouraged me to spend more because I had unused credits, though I declined. I headed to my gate, where I was notifed of a 15 minute delay.
I wasn't thrilled, but realzied it could be worse. Soon enough, boarding commenced and I was soon onboard the E170 of Republic Airways. Judging by the seat covers, it was an ex-US Airways Express plane.
The cabin was anything but modern, but would do the trick for the 45 minute flight. Before long, the safety demo was performed and we were pushing back. On our taxi, we had views of a construction site, presumably for DCA's new regional terminal. As we were turning onto the runway, there were views of the Washington Monument.
After a short take off roll, we were airborne.
The welcome announcement detailed about how there wouldn't be a drink service in economy as the flight was too short. I understand that it is, however, on mainline they have an express service for very short flights. I don't see why that can't be replicated on American Eagle. Anyways, I spent the rest of the flight staring out the window into the increasingly stormy skies.
Before long, we were descending into rainy Philadelpia.
Once we landed we were stuck on the taxiway for an hour as the airport was shut down due to possible lightning.
I felt it was a little crude of the pilot to describe a past incident where an airport employee died from being struck by lightning. While the airport was shut down, I was still able to spot one of Americans Cadillac tarmac transfer vehicles, which was cool to see. I would've been screwed if I didn't have my portable charger as the plane has no power outlets. It would've been especially bad not only with me ending up with nothing to do during the delay, but also potentially disastrous since my mobile boarding passes were on it and I had no paper copys. I couldn't help ut think the crew was kind of rude to passengers. When I headed to use the restroom during the delay, one glared at me with a "how dare you" type of look. Afterwhat felt like hours, we were informed that our gate wasn't available anymore and we were towed to an different one. I disembarked and headed straight to a loune where I could spend the rest of my layover.
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Hey Jonathan, thanks for sharing. These DCA-PHL runs can be pretty crAApy often spending more time with ATC delays on the tarmac than in the air, and then once you're in the air, there's no service in Y and almost no service in F. Quick reminder that recognisable faces need to be blurred to avoid privacy issues. I went ahead and blurred them for you here, but there is a blurring tool in the published, as you probably know.
Thanks!
Noted! And surprisingly, there actually was a drink service with snack basket in first class and then the snack basket was passed around the first class cabin during the delay.