Came home LAS-EWR on CO Thanksgiving night, and got to love traveling that night! There MIGHT have been 50 people on the 753, and if you were not traveling with a companion, you had three seats to yourself! There was one pilot in uniform with us, and God knows how many other CO people dead heading - one pilot out of uni was across from me (saw his bags), and at least of couple of FAs up in 1st (big time hugging with our FAs)Only bummer was that it was kind of bumpy, and the belt light was on all night . McCarran was emptier than a house of ill repute during a Mormon convention, and EVERY flight in our section of D gates was loading and pulling out early as possible.
What was funny during our flight was that all the senior crew members, outside of the safety stuff, seemed to be taking the night off! In coach, what I took to be the two junior members of the crew made all the announcements, pushed the cart up and down, etc, etc…And the captain, in his one and only announcement before the descent announcement, made sure we knew the 1st officer was flying the plane tonight! Could there have been some evaluations happening? Or is this because of the holiday?
And the very last odd thing was baggage claim - I bet there was not more 20 pieces that came off that plane…in fact, they were able to combine one carousel for three flights! Nothing like flying the night of a holiday!
The airline employees probably like working the holiday… fewer whiney pax. I noticed Skywest and Horizon cancelled their late night and early morning flights here.
Yeah, I think you had a unique flight experience just because of the number of passengers. Except for safety of course, things seem to get a little less formal with the smaller load and festive mood. I bet you that your first officer WANTED to fly your plane, so the PIC let him!! I took a redeye once from DEN to BWI. Forget what the plane was but it was a biggie with less than 20 or 30 people on it. We not only had all 3 seats, you could row hop. I remember it was UAL because at that time, they had the best food.
The flight started off with a 4 course meal which included steak, a veggie & tators and a small salad. On the side was a miniature bottle of wine which was free with the meal. After a delightful meal and an awesome summer sunset, we enjoyed an orange moon rise at 40k. The FAs were gauking at the bright orange as much as the passengers were, while they hopped from row to row for a better view. I called over one of the socializing FAs and told her UAL was my fav airline and they had the best food. She put up one finger and said wait, I’ll be right back. She came back with a full-sized bottle of wine, on the “house.” Needless to say, there were all kinds of pretty colors mixed in with the orange moon rise after that lol.
It was a good thing we were all relaxed and happy on our partying redeye, because on approach at BWI the winds knocked the plane around so much, I thought we were filming a crash movie.
I flew in from SFO/HOU into OKC on New Years day this year. The flight from SFO to HOU was very crowded but the paxs from HOU to OKC were really light - a whole unit of army guys (in sand camo) got on that flight & were really loud. We landed about 11:00pm - I was just tired of hearing them chatter in Spanish - seemed the whole unit was also Hispanic - course it was New Years day & I’m sure they were still partying!!!
Airport was pretty much deserted & cold getting to tram & car - was really glad to be home.
Back in the day, before Carter and Teddy Kennedy screwed up the air travel industry, I can rememebr traffic counts around 10 to 15 operations for the ENTIRE day on Thanksgiving and Christmas day.
This was at Baltimore. Back then the airlines all but totally shut down on those two days.
CAT - that’s news to me - how did Carter & Kennedy (not that I’m fond of either of them) screw up the air travel industry - would like to learn something new today besides what Rob taught me!!!
I had a flight back in the day from RNO to SLC on AAL, night flight. Talk about a light load, I counted eight passengers in total. It really was kind of unsettling in a way, like a twilight zone episode. Kept hearing Rod Serling…“picture if you will, a plane with no destination, a flight straight into the twilight zone” Gives me chills to this day.
During regulation air carriers were garunteed (sp) a profit of sorts. There was no incentive to do harm to each other.
That being the case they actually HELPED each other.
If a TWA pushback tug broke down a call over to Pan Am would usually get one over to help.
If there was a line maintenance problem and one carrier needed help troubleshooting the problem the mech could get a guy from another carrier to help.
Need help changing a tire during a turn around? There was usually help available.
If weather was impacting an airport and the schedules got all messed up a carrier could sometimes get a gate from another to at least get the people off the aircraft. A push back tug would then pull the plane to a parking stand.
All of this was voluntary and was the way buisness was done.
I think the pax on Jet Blue who spent so many hours locked in an airplane last winter would have voted to bring back at least some kind of regulation. Don’t you agree?
In today’s environment the carriers do what they can to screw each other over and the biggest loser is the plane load of passengers sitting captive in a hold block for three hours.
If you would rather pay $2000 to fly to florida (that’s what you’d be paying if we were still regulated) then you’re welcome to. I’ll take things how they are thank you very much. Passengers have voted with their wallets what they want and what they want clearly is low fares.
. McCarran was emptier than a house of ill repute during a Mormon convention, and EVERY flight in our section of D gates was loading and pulling out early as possible.
