Well I finally made a trip to Florida. All in all the flights were pretty easy. DAB has once again proven to be #1 in convenience.
1/5/11
US Airways 1511
Depart: New York-LaGuardia (On time departure) Gate 15
Arrive: Charlotte (Early) Gate B11?
Seat: 16A
Airbus A321
First, I want to mention I went from curbside to my gate in 5 minutes. LGA security is not as big of a hassle as you think.
We boarded right on time at 10:50 AM at gate 15. A relatively short line up to runway 31 and we were airborne for Charlotte. The flight was relatively smooth until our descent through an overcast sky over the area. We touched down on runway 23 using the entire runway. It was probably intentional since our arrival gate is right near the end of this runway. We did have a slight wait since we were early and our gate was still occupied.
US Airways 2675
Depart: Charlotte (1.5 hours late) Gate E25
Arrive: Daytona Beach, FL (1.33 hours late) Gate 5
Seat: 7F
Canadair Regional Jet 900
This was the issue of the entire trip, and it wasn't even that bad. I became suspicious after arriving at gate E25 to see that my flight to Daytona Beach was not listed. I went back to the monitors to see that we were delayed until 4:23 PM. It turned out the problem was the computer system that did all the crews paperwork. The other issue was that our plane had to go to GSO and back. After the GSO-CLT leg of our plane was cancelled the next issue was a/c availability. It all worked out. We departed at our new estimated departure time and were airborne shortly after. One note about the CR9 is how misaligned the windows are in reference to the seats.
I think the pilot put the thrust to the metal here because we were on our descent pretty quickly. For those of you who are not aware of the current events going on at DAB, Runway 7L is under construction and is partially closed for a repave and an upgrade on the ILS system. We had a rough descent due to a lot of unstable air with lots of rain. Our final approach into Daytona Beach included crossing the coastline near the Volusia/Flagler County Line followed by a turn to the south. We passed to the east of OMN and eventually landed on runway 16. Wheels up to wheels down was almost exactly one hour. A quick taxi to gate 5 and we were parked. Now, for those of you who are in favor of the checked bag fees (I don't think there are many on here), I would like to mention that a large majority of the passengers on this flight were lined up in the jetway waiting for carry on bags that they checked planeside in CLT. I made my way through the terminal (was a bit disoriented since I usually fly Delta into DAB and am used to exiting through gate 2 or 4), out front and my mother picked me up.
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