The District Through my Eyes.

Here's a small photographic sampling of my wanderings around downtown Washington D.C. during my trip. Remember, you can click on each picture for a larger, more detailed version. Thanks and ENJOY!

The Return Leg: AirTran BWI-GRR

So after a quick few days in the Washington D.C. metro region, it was time to return to 'The Mitten'. Good times, great family, amazingly delicious bbq and middle-eastern food and more than a few tasty East-coast craft beers were had.

On Sunday, July 17 we began our journey up the 295 Baltimore-Washington Parkway toward BWI about 1:15pm EST for our 3:30pm departure. Immediatly upon entering the parkway we encountered bottlenecked and clogged traffic travelling at only 5-10mph. My concerns began to grow each minute we were stuck in the mess with no forseeable end. Soon enough however (in about 15 mins) the clog mercifully cleared at the exit for the (now closed) Goddard Space Center. No accident, no construction, no lane closures. I guess beltway people like to gawk at off-ramps ;). At any length, we arrived promptly curbside about 2pm sharp. I immediatly got myself checked in at a kiosk and then proceeded to show my technology-deficient mom how to use the kiosks, haha. A small backup in the TSA lines were no problem, and by 2:30 we were walking toward gate D23.

Sunday, July 17, 2011.
AirTran Airways
Flight #484 BWI-GRR
Equipment: Boeing 717-200
Seat: 23A - Window
Dep. 3:33 PM
Arr. 5:06 PM

On time departure saw us launching to the West, which sadly meant no banking out over the Chesapeake. One could immediatly see the heat haze in the small-popping clouds as we ascended over the mid-atlantic toward the great lakes region.


Super-quick climb-out. You can simply tell how warm and volatile the air is from the clouds.


The last shot over Lake Erie really let's the viewer see the heat-haze I speak of. Pictured is the start of the Toledo River. Upon landing in GRR it was well above 90 Degrees F.

During the flight I would have said the load was only between 60% and 70%. We were seated in row 23 on the left side, right behind the second exit row. Behind us there were only 5-7 people. Both seats in the exit row in front of us was empty, so yours truly jumped forward and grabbed some extra leg room for a little bit.

All too quickly I recognized the Northwestern Ohio coast of Lake Erie below us, and soon after decent began. The quickness of that hop seemed odd to me, as all my travels in the last several years have taken me to California. It was however over all too soon and we landed parallel I-196 on rwy. 26L in GRR. A quick taxi in and my amazing girlfriend was waiting for us at the end of concourse B. I could not think up a better welcoming comittee!

As mentioned in the out-going trip report, the only flaw of AirTran was the dang destroyed arm-rest. Boarding was event-free and even though I was in zone 5, I was on in under 6 minutes! Now I use Delta (and formerly Northwest) for most of my flying needs. It seems as if on all of my Delta flights, no matter where, the gate lice and line-jumpers are everywhere. The gate dragon calls for first class only, and 40 people run to the gate, or during the call for those needing assistance four able-bodied business men/women head up. I don't know what the difference is, it might have just been random circumstance, but it was pleasant to see!

Apologies for the lack of photos on this leg, I think I was more focused on the chores to catch up on at home upon return, as well as being somewhat sad of the vacation's end.

I hope all have enjoyed, even though the experience is short and ordinary.

Thank you and happy travels!

AirTran Airways and BWI/Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

At the end of June a relative of mine living in the Washington D.C. area contacted my mother and I about coming down in a few weeks for a visit. Since I had not been to the D.C. area since middle school I was immediatly up for the getaway. I would travel down on Wednesday, July 13, my mother would travel the day after on July 14th and we'd both travel back to GRR together on Sunday, July 17. With the dates set, travel logistics needed to be figured out. When travelling into the Washington D.C. area you have a choice of three airports. The first, and largest, is Washington Dulles airport in Northern Virginia which is a ways from the center of the metro, but is a major hub for United Airlines and serves as the regions international gateway. One needs access Dulles by freeway or shuttle, or likely bus as the Metro rail does not reach out to it yet. Second is the most convenient, Washington Reagan National airport. This airport is very similar to NY-LaGuardia, it sits in the center of everything, right on the Potomac and more than a mile South of the Pentagon on the Virginia side. It's land-size is small, but it's extremely busy and congested, again similar to LaGuardia. It's usually a more expensive airport to fly through as it's used a lot by businessmen and politicians due to it's location and ground/public transportation options.

From GRR, you have a non-stop flight to Reagan National (DCA) by Delta, but it's often expensive as mentioned earlier. There exists no direct flights between GRR and IAD (Dulles) as of yet, so one must likely take United and connect in Chicago. Until the last year, the third choice wasn't much better. The third choice being BWI, or Baltimore-Washington International. BWI sits South of Baltimore and is only a half-hour's drive from D.C.'s Northern suburbs. In May of 2010 low cost carrier AirTran Airways began several daily round-trips between GRR and it's BWI mini-hub. BWI is not only home to AirTran, but it also serves as a massive East-coast hub for Southwest. Fares here are usually heavily disounted compared to choices one and two. As an example, both my mother and I had ticket prices that were below $200 R/T, likely 1/3 of what it would have cost to fly into DCA, the most convenient airport. With my relatives living in Greenbelt, Maryland (North of D.C. proper) BWI made the most sense. We found out there was a shuttle running every 40 minutes between BWI and the Greenbelt Metro station (the last stop on the Green Line and a mile from my relative's residence!). It was sealed and all was booked with AirTran, an airline I had never flown with previously.

Wed. July 13, 2011
AirTran Airways
Flight 959
GRR-BWI
Seat 26 A - Window
Dep. 2:34 PM
Arr. 4:04 PM
I arrived at GRR around 11:00 in the morning due to it being my only option for a ride to the airport, and I wasn't going to pay for parking so it was worth it in the end. After sitting around for a while I made my way through security and down the B councourse to gate B-5.


My Boeing 717 awaited me, my first Boeing 717 experience. It turned out to be very similar to a DC-9, just 40-years younger. Before boarding the gate dragons were announcing an upgrade to business class for $49, not bad at all. I gave it some thought, but decided against as it was only a 1hr. 15min. flight. In no time my zone number four was called to board. I am very impressed with AirTran's boarding process, both times we loaded fast, orderly and without gate-lice and line-jumpers.
We pushed back and taxied out for an Easterly takeoff from rwy. 8R. We proceeded out over the Michigan countryside, over Lowell, MI, passed over DTW and Downriver Detroit, and Lake Erie. We made land-fall around Cleveland and continued on our Southeastern heading over W. Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Upon our arrival there had been storms in the area that were moving South and it was a rainy approach over the Chesapeake Bay into BWI.



Detroit Metro Airport below!


Obligatory legroom shot. My legs are almost stretched out all the way, when you're 5'3", even coach isn't bad.


Our rainy approach over the bay.

Upon landing it became very clear to us that the storm had just passed through BWI and was headed South toward Dulles and Reagan. These two United Boeing 777's and the SAS Scandinavian Airbus were all diverted to BWI on their way to Dulles. The flight crew also informed us upon landing that BWI controllers had issued a ground-stop to all departing aircraft. As we taxied in, we passed a holding que with no less than 8 Southwest 737's, a US A320 and two AA 737's waiting for clearance to get outta dodge.
We taxied around from the South side of the terminal over to the North side where concourse D sits, and where AirTran resides. As we pulled in we were one of only a handful of jets at the councourse nearly 30 gates large; a couple US E-145's waited with a US A320 to Phoenix, a lone United 757 stood by waiting to head back to Chicago. We were the only AirTran flight present when we arrived. BWI, aside from the gorgous and relatively new Southwest Airlines terminal, is somewhat lacking. It has a very 1980's spartan feel to it, but it's efficiently utilitarian. Concourse D has sufficient food and dining, but is nothing to write home about. If connecting between concourses and terminals, one must leave security and then re-enter as one cannot traverse between the airport concourses without leaving the sterile airside area. I failed to take any pictures either in-bound or out-bound of the terminal and gate areas, my appologies. In Lieu of photos, here is a gate map:


AirTran is overall a pretty decent low-cost airline. The price is right and they seem to have things down to a pretty efficient science. Modest cabin crew and clean, new planes. My only real complaint was that on both my flights I encountered a severely broken armrest in my row. When I say severely broken, I mean actually busted/physically broken and coming apart. Even though you are an LCC, this is not the image you want to leave a customer with. Would I fly with them again however? Certainly, if they have a price and schedule that works for me.

With the pending merger of AirTran and Southwest, it is un-clear what changes are in store for the airline. There has been a lot of speculation about SWA cutting some service(AirTran) to smaller cities like Grand Rapids. I for one am really hoping that does not happen, but I will remain dubious until official news arrives. With the merger in mind, I will leave you with a picture of AirTran's future.

Airline De-regulation Today

This is a GREAT article and in it they even cite my hometown airport of Grand Rapids, MI at the end as a perfect example. This really gives you some insight on the price of oil and cost of running an airline. De-regulation at the end of the 1980's saw some routes to tin towns federally subsidized, now even those EAS (Essential Air Service) routes may be cut due to fuel prices. I for one can't fault the airlines one bit, even though it is sad for these communities.

Joe Sharkey
-New York Times

"24 Towns may lose air service - Delta Air Lines says it's losing $14 million a year serving the small airports.

Rural America, already struggling to recover from the recession and the flight of its young people, is about to take another blow: the loss of its airline service.

That was underscored last week when Delta Air Lines announced that it “can no longer afford” to continue service at 24 small airports. The carrier says it is losing a total of $14 million a year on flights from places like Thief River Falls, a city of 8,600 in northwest Minnesota that fills only 12 percent of the seats, or Pierre, the capital of South Dakota, where Delta’s two daily flights are on average less than half full.

Nationally, all major airlines have been reducing and sometimes eliminating flights altogether in small cities, as the industry concentrates much of its service in 29 major hubs, which now account for 70 percent of all passenger traffic, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Delta’s announcement was especially acute because the airline operates in most of the small airports that receive a total of almost $200 million in federal subsidies to maintain air service under the Essential Air Service program. The subsidies are scheduled to expire in 2013 unless revived by Congress. Delta acquired many of those small-city markets in the Midwest when it merged with Northwest Airlines.

Airlines say that simple economics are driving them out of small-town America. With fuel prices high, carriers have been reducing domestic routes and seating capacity to focus on the flights that bring in the most revenue per plane — typically those in larger cities, especially major hubs. At the same time, airlines are removing less fuel-efficient aircraft from their fleets, including the 50-seat regional jets that have been the backbone of air service in small- and midsize markets.

“We just don’t have airplanes that can serve small communities economically anymore,” said Michael Boyd, the president of the air-service consulting firm Boyd Group International. “And unless somebody wants to pay a whole lot of money to carry a few people out of the airport at Thief River Falls, it just ain’t going to happen anymore for a lot of those places.”

One of those places, it appears, is Muscle Shoals, a town of about 13,000 along the Tennessee River in northwest Alabama. About $1.7 million a year in federal subsidies maintains two Delta flights a day from Northwest Alabama Regional Airport in Muscle Shoals, one of the 24 airports Delta wants to stop serving unless it can receive larger subsidies. Those flights are operated under the Delta name on Saab A340 turboprops flown by Mesaba Airlines, a Delta subcontractor.

Barry Auchly, of the Shoals Chamber of Commerce, said that the airport has enough market vitality to justify keeping commercial service. However, he said, passengers have fallen off since Delta decided this summer to redirect its two daily departures to Memphis, rather than to Delta’s global hub in Atlanta where the flights went last year.

Delta says its flights from the airport are an average of 35.7 percent full, which compares with the national average on Delta’s domestic flights of 81.9 percent in June.

“Last year, the first year with the Atlanta service, we exceeded 8,500 passengers and were well on our way to 10,000,” said Mr. Auchly. That growth proved, he said, that the local airport could eventually operate without federal air-service subsidies. He said Delta told him the destinations were switched because Memphis, though far less in demand, had more efficient turboprop service facilities than Atlanta.

“We want to be a self-sustaining airport,” Mr. Auchly said. “We think we have the demand; we just need to be able to depend on consistent service.”

Delta would like to continue flying from some of the 24 airports it designated last Friday as “underperforming” — but only if the federal subsidies were increased to cover the additional costs of serving them with regional jets. Meanwhile, Delta said it plans to abandon other airports where load factors were deemed too low, and assist those airports in finding replacement carriers.

Replacing a 34-seat turboprop plane with a 50-seat regional jet would seem to be counterintuitive in markets where the problem is too few passengers. Kristin Baur, a Delta spokeswoman, acknowledged that 50-seat regional jets, besides having 16 more seats, also are less fuel-efficient.

However, she said, regional jets are more popular with passengers, and can increase overall bookings in some markets where people will drive to more distant airports rather than fly a turboprop from the local airport.

Officials at some of the 24 small airports slated to lose Delta service said the airline has not flatly told them when it is stopping the flights, though at subsidized airports Delta said it would withdraw when the current contracts expired.

In some markets, depending on load factors, Delta would like to either receive new Essential Air Service contracts or get more money for the ones it currently has. Slightly more than a third of the airports Delta identified on its list would be in that group, it said.

Pierre, a scrappy city of 14,000 that sits smack in the rural center of South Dakota, got the news that it might lose Delta service just as weary residents were hauling away the last soggy sandbags as they recovered from major flooding of the Missouri River in May.

After years of receiving federal air-service subsidies, the airport now has four unsubsidized departures a day — two by the Delta subcontractor Mesaba and two by the regional carrier Great Lakes Airlines.

The city was recently so optimistic about its prospects that it began construction on a $12 million passenger terminal at Pierre Regional Airport.

“We’re rural America,” said Laurie Gill, the mayor. “It’s hard for me to understand a business decision to eliminate commercial air service based on the growth that we’ve seen here.”

Delta flew 4,840 of the total 6,833 passengers who boarded flights at Pierre this year through June, and Delta’s planes left with 47.4 percent of the seats filled on average. If Delta leaves and no other airline comes in, most travelers from the South Dakota capital would have to drive to the closest bigger airport in Rapid City, 140 miles away. Time-constrained corporate and government travelers dislike that idea, Ms. Gill said.

Welcome to the tough new world of commercial air travel, said Mr. Boyd, who thinks the Essential Air Service program serves a vital need for those communities that are far from an alternate airport with better service.

“It’s not like people are going to get cut off from the world. You may be able to have your local air service, but maybe it’s an hour’s drive away,” he said.

For example, Muskegon, in western Michigan, has a few daily flights operated by United Airlines, subsidized with $600,000 a year from the Essential Air Service program. Meanwhile, the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, 40 miles away, had two million passengers last year, and is served by eight airlines.

The savings from the short drive can be substantial. On Monday, for example, the lowest round-trip fare on a United flight to Kennedy Airport in New York from Muskegon, connecting through Chicago, was listed at $1,149. Drive to Grand Rapids, though, and you could find a flight to Kennedy for as little as $600 on various airlines.

'Muskegon has great air service,” Mr. Boyd said. “It’s called Grand Rapids." "

Link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43814049/ns/travel-business_travel/

The District: Preview

Hey Folks, Last night I returned from a 5-day trip to the nation's capital. Here's a quick teaser of a photo journey and commentary to come:

Why Do People Hate Airlines So Much?

From the guy on the ramp loading bags onto the plane, reservations agents, ticket and gate agents and flight attendants, it's a thankless job working for an airline. That's the immediate impression I get from this new survey done by The Atlantic.
Four US airlines were listed as the most hated companies in our country, Delta, US Airways, United and American. One might think of appalling safety records or some ghastly goings-on in their procedures was what the public saw as being so terrible to "hate" them. Delta Airlines, recently listed by Fortune Magezine to be the most admired US airline, was placed at number two, yes #2, on the list because of extra baggage charges and people having to pay for food and alcoholic beverages. Yup, the exact things that every other airline in this country does.

That listing really blows my mind, but at the same time it doesn't surprise me at all. Flying has become one of the less glamorous experiences out there. It's a lot like taking a Greyhound bus, but with more TSA frisking in the process. The customer comes into contact with a lot of unpleasant variables long before he or she even steps foot onto the airplane. There is also a slight twist in my comparison to bus travel.

You see while flying has become a lot like bus travel, so has it's ticket price. Right now on Delta I can fly round-trip from the Great Lakes State to Los Angeles for $309 total. Do you know what jet fuel prices are right now? I'll give you a hint, they ain't makin' a profit off my sorry ass flying me near-transcon for $309. So if you think you're gonna get a three-course meal on china and alcohol included in that you're nuts. The airlines simply can't afford to do it, so they need to find other ways to compensate for the fact that the average vacation traveler in the US nowadays wants a $200 fare to Vegas for the weekend. They need to make a profit to, well, survive and pay their employees!!

On the topic of poor customer service, well, you get what you pay for. Why do you think the front-cabin is so sought after by frequent flyers, genius. As I said, people need to understand that when they want rock-bottom fares and then show up at the airport in a tanktop, cut-offs and lacking sufficient amounts of deoderant, you're simply creating your own situation. The public's expectations are not in line with what they demand. If you want it to be like 1975, go look up the price of a round-trip trans-con fare on Pan Am or TWA in that era. Betcha it's completely off the charts in comparison, inflation included.

What's ironic about all this? The four airlines listed are the four remaining "legacy" carriers in the United States. That being that not a single LCC (low-cost-carrier i.e. Southwest, AirTran, JetBlue) was included. Could it simply be all in the customer's head? The stats are interesting.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/the-19-most-hated-companies-in-america/241344/#slide18


Your reaction?

The Verdict

Yesterday afternoon is seemed that every person between the ages of 18 and 75 and stay-at-home mom's everywhere were glued to their television sets. Emotions ran high, female television hosts were crying live on the air, and everyone had an opinion. If one didn't know better this could have been a landmark civil or human rights act. One might have thought we had found the definitive cure for cancer. Maybe OJ had gotten re-aquainted with his old white Bronco. It all turned out to be none of the above actually. Instead of worrying about our children's education in such a manner, real and meaningful employment, the national debt or other real issue we bind ourselves together in a court case involving people no one had ever heard of even a month ago. Some young mother had been accused of killing her small child and covering it up. Despite what mass public opinion was the jury found this young lady, Casey Anthony, not-guilty of murder in a Florida courtroom. In that same amount of time more than 1,000 children in Africa died due to hunger and disease caused by war and poverty.

If you can't tell from my opening statement, I hadn't followed more than 5 seconds of this trial until the moment yesterday afternoon (apparently when the verdict was read) that my Facebook news-feed absolutely exploded with hatred, outrage and disgust. "What the hell just happened?" Happened to be my immediate response. The only way I realized what on earth anyone was going on about was by going to my local TV news homepage and recognizing a picture of the acquitted.

"Have you been living under a rock?!?" One may very well ask me. That all depends on your perspective. I don't like drama, daytime TV nor courtroom television. I don't like watching JerseyShore/Kardashian-style "reality" TV. I'm more of an ESPN/Travel Channel/History Channel/Discovery Channel kind of guy. If it's what you like, it's what you like. Not that only people who love JerseyShore like watching stuff like that trial.

So with all that said, I will give you my one take on the topic. Was justice served? Maybe and maybe not. As you know by now I didn't watch a moment of the coverage nor read more than a single sentence about it, before or after the verdict. The best explanation I can give for why she was acquitted was, of all things, geographical. Follow me on this. Florida is a death-penalty state, and they certainly take pride in executing (ahem -pun- ahem) their policies. As we know, innocent people have been sentenced to death and their execution carried out. In a case such as this that jury likely had that in mind. A Florida jury will be much more methodical and apprehensive to convict someone of first degree murder than would a Michigan jury, based solely on the weight of the implications of their verdict. In Michigan, I am confident she would have been found guilty because we are not a capital punishment state. If that jury had even an ounce of doubt, or if something in the prosecution's case wasn't 110% air-tight, that jury will hesitate and double-clutch the "death" decision (if they are being responsible with the power vested in them by the court-system). A little girl is dead, whether by cold-blooded murder or neglegance you and I will probably never know. If Casey Anthony is indeed guilty she will be judged in the end by her creator, that we can be sure of. That is my only explanation for why the verdict was decided in such a way.

Many folks are sickened by the outcome yesterday and emotions obviously were high, even on the internet. Like much of our attention to this instance, this case will soon fade into the annals of the history of our popular culture. We so smother and exhaust ourselves with these real-life soap-operas that we blind ourselves to the greater issues in our world which sadly have always been and continue to exist. If we however took the same emotion and outrage made visible for something like this and transferred it to say, global human rights, energy and efficiency, truth in government and economical security we could really accomplish some things beyond the water-cooler.

Good luck.