SWA SAT-DEN-STL 04/27/2009

Southwest Airlines
Boeing 737-700
SAT-DEN
N495WN
April 26th, 2009

After an amazing time in San Antonio, and quite a few warnings and texts making sure I didn’t get the swine flu, which I am keeping a heavy eye on…it was time to fly back home and go back to work and classes! L

My friend had a 7am departure so he had to be at airport for his check-in by 6:15am, and lobbied at around 5:30am or so. So that meant going to bed early, and making sure we got enough sleep, which I never, ever sleep well knowing I have to be up early.

The alarm woke us up and we got ready to lobby. My friend’s itinerary was concrete, he had a 5 leg to do, and I had a—No freaking idea where I was going to get home to STL :-P

It seemed every possible flight on SWA out of SAT was sold out or overbooked for what reason I don’t know, but the festival that went on in downtown San Antonio probably didn’t help my loads. I was checking everywhere, SAT-DAL-STL, SAT-HOU-STL, SAT-MDW-STL, SAT-PHL-STL, SAT-BWI-STL, any possible connection, till finally, I noticed DEN had open loads. So I checked the DEN-STL connection, and IF, my SAT-DEN got in time it would leave me exactly 30 minutes to change aircrafts in DEN.

With that plan in mind, I checked in at the Kiosk, grabbed my security document, and waited in line for ages to go through security. As I was going through and finally got to the machine, the guy in front of me kept failing. He took off his necklace, went through set it off. Went back and took off his watch, went through and set it off, this happened 3 times as I am standing around waiting getting quite mad. They made him go back and off went his pants down to I HOPE a second pair of shorts; otherwise, he was down to his buttoned up shirt, and shorts, and socks..Practically strip-searched. Finally made it. That literally took five minutes…

After THAT ordeal, I went through just fine, and walked down to the gate my friend was leaving from to chat with him for a bit and the crew before they left. Once it was time for his airline to start boarding I said my good byes and left to go back to the WN gates.

I went to get McDonalds, and sat in the business seating area, and ate my sandwich, enjoying the free wireless and watching my friend’s flight take off.

Soon they announced time to board and I lined up in B when they got to B. Got in line, and got on board and sat down in 14A. I was extremely tired, and kept nodding off. I of course got the plane at gate as usual and then after they closed doors I watched the safety briefing and we started to back out.

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We backed out and taxied for literally maybe 1 minute then the chime signaling for take off came on and we went down the runway and took off! This seemed kind of steep but oh well; maybe I was just really delirious!

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We took off and turned and climbed to cruising altitude, leaving the rain, gloom and clouds for sunny Denver.

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I promptly fell right asleep, waking up periodically. The F/A was kind enough to leave me a breakfast bar they had passed out while I was asleep, so I grabbed it and packed it to eat on my DEN-STL segment.

I slept some more for the remainder of the flight again taking pics I found of interest as I woke up.

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Suddenly I felt a tapping and realized I fell asleep and was being asked to put my tray table up, I don’t normally sleep at all on planes so I really had to be out of it to have to be woken up by the crew!

I took pictures of the approach, and saw couple of planes flying by as we were approaching DEN Airport. We came in for landing and had a nice touchdown. We slowed to a stop and we taxied off it seemed quite long.

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Taxied by a few WN and UA planes. I was impressed by the sheer amount of WN planes and activity at DEN. Who knew only in a couple years WN would grow this much at DEN. I wish WN the best of luck there and hope they do fine with the new stations.

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We taxied to the gate, and I got off in a rush hoping to make my connection. I realized we landed quite early giving me 45 minutes, to connect. When I entered the airport I looked to my left and the next gate was in fact where my STL flight would be departing from, excellent! I took a picture of the plane I flew in on at the gate then went to the next gate to check in for the DEN-STL segment.

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Southwest Airlines
Boeing 737-300
N657SW
DEN-STL
April 26th, 2009

I went to the gate and checked in and got A47 for the flight. It was extremely wide open, over108 seats were open. I went to sit down and simply texted with some friends letting them know I was making good time in coming home.

Very soon the –300 came to the gate, and I despise –300’s because usually the interior of the –300 is a bit different then the –700’s I see on WN. Not a huge one but it makes a difference to me. Yes I am quite picky hehe.

Grabbed a picture of the –300 at the gate and went to line up.

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I got in line for A47 and a woman comes over and says, “Excuse me what number are you?” I said “A47”. She announced “oh I am A46, let me cut in front of you” I said “ma'am” as long as we are within the 5 group number it doesn’t need to be in EXACT order” She goes “well, my daughter works for Southwest and she told me this is how we board in numerical order!” Me “well I WORKED at Southwest and did this every day and trust me it doesn’t go like that, but since you insist you may cut in front of me” She got in line in front of me and there was.2 people behind me that’s it. It was fairly wide for god’s sakes. Being as we were both non-rev’s it wasn’t smart for this conversation to happen, but whatever.

We got on board and I was surprised to see the –300 had a –700 interior! All of a sudden I didn’t mind riding this –300 after all!

I sat down and the F/A asked where I was based at. I don’t know how or why but everyone seems to think I am a F/A for the airline, I guess we do sort of wear very similar uniforms but oh well. I told her I was a CSA at STL and on a Leave so I wasn’t actively working. So we briefly discussed WN news and then it was time to shut the door.

As usual got the wing/window seat of 14A again and snapped a picture.

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Safety briefings were done as we taxied and we went straight to the runway and took off!

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On the way we had passed Slam Dunk One, which is one of my favorite color schemes with WN.

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After take off, we turned and like every take off, climbed to cruising altitude!

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This flight went fairly quick, but we still got some in flight snack, another breakfast bar, two bags of peanuts and I ordered a sprite to go with it as well.

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We hit some really bad turbulence over Kansas, I mean wings up and down, shaking, swaying left to right that sort of thing. Had me just a tad nervous, and it takes a lot of shaking to get me going actually.

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I kinda dozed on and off again back and forth as I had a two-hour drive to do also once I landed. Again, the downfall of living far from a major airport..ahhhh.

I took more pictures that were pleasing but since I slept a lot not as many pics were done on this segment.

Finally we started the approach for STL, and did our turns and what not.

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The approach into STL was VERY weird, and I didn’t recognize it at first. I originally thought maybe we were going to land on the new runway, but the approach for that takes us over the Missouri River, and I saw the Mississippi River off to the far distance, We made a huge turn to the right, and the city of STL appeared. But it appeared southwest of me instead of east of me, which is usual for a 30 landing.

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I suddenly realized that we were going to land on 24, which I have only done once before in my life. I got excited again, and when we flew over the Boeing place, which wasn’t far from my old apartment, it confirmed for me we were in fact landing on 24!!!

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We came down on 24 and immediately to my left I see a Mexicana Airbus parked at the Fed Ex building, charter or divert? We slowed to a stop as 3 WN 737’s were waiting to take off on 12L. Now that just seemed odd to me, landings on 24, which is literally parallel to 12 landings. But they were doing just that!

As if we needed more action, I saw an AA MD80 parked near the WN terminal tarmac, next to 30 L, sitting with a fire truck behind the MD80, and passengers were sitting on board, and some men were looking at the left engine. You gotta be kidding me, another engine failure or something? If so, this was the second time that AA had an MD80 emergency at STL, and 3rd or 4th overall recently if you recall the one LGA-ORD, which ironically I was flying out of as well that day too. Apparently AA MD80’s emergencies happen when I fly into/out of said airport, I should avoid that hahaha.

After we taxied to the gate I got a closer look at the plane, and they had the catering truck parked up in front of the left engine, with the STL fire department sitting behind it with the lights on. Anyone know what was going on?!

I was the last one off the plane as I was busy staring at the AA MD80 LOL. I got off the plane, and went to the gates to talk to other co workers I hadn’t seen before I flew out the day before.

After that I got my car and commenced for the 2 hr drive home!

Alex