#26 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
833 reviews
After a great 3 days in the Pacific Northwest, it was time to go home, and this was going to be my first transcontinental red-eye. I mainly booked it over the morning departure so I could have a third full day in the city, and I definitely took advantage of that. However, as I'll get into later, that would ultimately prove to be my downfall.
Check-out from my hotel was at 11:00 AM, but I had a show to see with my sister at Seattle Rep and made one more trip to Pike Place Market before collecting my bags at around 5:20 PM. I had some dinner in the International District and bought some goodies at Uwajimaya before hopping on the Link back to SEA, which arrived at around 7:30. It was a smooth ride, but that would be one of the last things about the trip that I could say that about. Again, I only had carry-on luggage so I headed right to security, but I waited about 30 minutes in line because there were only a couple machines in use. Unlike at IAD, I had to remove my iPad from my bag, but not my liquids. My bag was flagged by the machine for "suspicious content," which in this case was a commemorative Seattle Kraken hockey puck, which the agent was very interested in, but let me keep nonetheless. I had about 2 1/4 hours to kill, and I spent most of that in the main atrium between the A/B and C gates watching football/soccer highlights on my iPad. Our inbound flight was early arriving from SNA, so once it arrived I made my way to the gate for boarding.
The SeaTac Link station, which goes right to the middle of downtown. Keep in mind though that it's kind of a hike from the station to any of the terminal entrances, and there's no shuttle.
This store in terminal C had some fun-looking (albeit overpriced) things–I bought a TWA and Piedmont Airlines laptop sticker.
When I made it to the gate, my A220 was being serviced and things looked to be going well, but then one of the FAs from the SNA-SEA flight had a lengthy chat with the gate agent, and then the agent announced that a new crew was being found and boarding would be delayed. I braced for a long wait but luckily, they arrived after about 15 minutes and boarding started soon after. When I boarded, the crew were in good spirits despite having been probably called into work a very short time before.
Classic #BoardingNotBoarding here
I took my seat in 20A and began to wind down as the rest of the passengers boarded. It didn't help that my seatmate didn't seem intent on getting rest right away, as he kept his seatback TV on (and with the news on, to boot).
AA, AM and HA in Terminal S
N384HA had just arrived from HNL
After the safety video, I put in my earplugs and tried to doze off as we pushed back, but it felt like suspended animation as we made our way off the ramp and onto the taxiway. We were already well past our scheduled departure time when we pulled onto the taxiway, but I knew something was wrong when we made a big U-turn right before the runway. Sure enough, the captain came on the PA system and said that one of the other passengers was not feeling well, so we were returning to the terminal. We parked at the S-pier where we were met by paramedics, and the passenger and his traveling companion both exited. Pretty soon, we were back off the gate and finally making our final taxi before taking off just after midnight.
I do not sleep well on planes, so I was banking on my tiredness from the day out in Seattle to get me to fall asleep, but as someone who's 6'3", it was hard to get into a comfortable position. The last thing I remember before dozing off for a couple hours was the FA doing a drink service, which I did not partake in, and then I dozed off until we were over South Dakota. After that, I tried again to get some sleep, and I woke up a couple more hours later just past Chicago. Since we had a good wind at our backs, by that point we had just about an hour and a half left of the flight, so I opened my window and got some great views of the sunrise over Ohio or West Virginia. The FAs came through once again and did a drink service, and that coffee was sorely needed. Pretty soon, we made a sharp right north of Leesburg and made an approach from the north over Montgomery County, MD before landing from the north at 7:38 AM after just over 4 and a half hours in the air.
After a quick taxi, we parked towards the end of the B concourse and deplaned quickly. It had been a while since I had arrived at IAD on a domestic flight, but the domestic wing of that concourse was quite empty at that time of the morning. The AirTrain ride was very quick, and since I had no checked baggage, I headed right for the Metro to take me back home, where I took a long nap after getting just bits of sleep on the plane.
If my trip to Seattle reminded me how much I loved flying, my trip home reminded me why it can be a hassle sometimes. I knew it was a bold decision to take a redeye, and with that could come unanticipated delays. That's exactly what happened, but it was outside the airline's control, and both the cabin crew and the ground staff did a good job communicating the reasons for the delays. With all of the options that exist between DC and Seattle, I would still choose DL again.
1 Comments
Yikes, at 6'3" I can imagine even being in an exit row isn't super spacious!
Though I lived in DC for over a decade, I had no idea DL flew SEA-IAD...I guess it might be somewhat recent since the whole DL-AS breakup. It is good to have all 3 alliances on the route now for added competition. From a hard product perspective, DL A220s probably win as the better cabins with PTVS and wider seats than AS 737s of UA A320s and 737s. Definitely nice to have options!
Thanks for sharing!
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