Review of American Airlines flight Washington → Charlotte in Economy

check in and security

I was running late to check in to my flight to Charlotte so I wasn’t able to get a picture of the check in area at DCA. I needed to check a bag today and the cutoff time is 45 minutes prior to departure time. With a departure time of 1:37 pm, I got there right in the nick of time at 12:51 pm for the 12:52 cutoff.

Please do as I say and not as I do, plan for extra time to get to the airport in case of something unexpected coming up. I didn’t do that today, and it almost backfired on me.

Once checked in, I proceeded through the clear lane at DCA’s north security checkpoint in Terminal 1. And made my way through national hall and to the new concourse E, which is stunning by the way. It’s a very clean, modern looking concourse.

boarding

We began boarding a few minutes behind schedule, at around 1:20, about 3 minutes behind our board time of 1:17.

Once on board, I was greeted by a friendly female flight attendant, but wasn’t offered a sanitizing wipe… I guess that’s just a United thing?

seat

I quickly found my seat 9F, a window seat in main cabin extra in the second row of the cabin. I wasn’t able to get a picture of the seat or of the cabin, as I boarded after about half of the aircraft was already on board.

The seating on the CRJ-900 in economy is arranged in a 2-2 configuration so no middle seats on this flight.
The seat featured 34 inches of pitch and 17 inches of width.

The seat also featured two windows.

The seat itself was reasonably comfortable for this one hour hop to Charlotte, but I’ve heard of PSA operating these on much longer flights and it wouldn’t be my preference in economy.

The seat back had the usual, a tray table, and a literature pocket. Though, it didn’t have an in-flight magazine because American Airlines discontinued its in flight magazine, American Way, in June 2021.

The room underneath the seat was big and roomy enough to store my overstuffed backpack.

the flight

At 1:49, the safety demonstration began. There was no welcome announcement from the flight deck. So, unfortunately, I didn’t know what our flight time would be.

We pushed back at 1:54, approximately 17 minutes behind schedule.

At 1:58, we began our very quick and short taxi to runway 15.

At 1:59, we were holding short of runway 15 awaiting landing traffic! Like I said, quick!

We waited quite a bit of time for our departure. Over 11 minutes for some landing traffic. I was able to get a shot of this CRJ that landed as we were waiting.

Finally, at 2:10, we took runway 15 for departure, and headed due south towards North Carolina.

At 2:14, we reached 10,000 feet and we were well on our way to Charlotte. They announced that there would be a full beverage service and snacks in main cabin today.
 
On American, in Main Cabin extra, you receive complimentary alcoholic beverages. However, I recently had undergone a medical procedure and could not partake today. So I went with a Coke Zero, which arrived at 2:28 pm. It was actually served by the first class flight attendant.

Which I thought was interesting. Like, she went up to the first galley to pour everyone’s drinks and bring them back. They also offered some pretzels, but I declined.

At 2:43, I felt the plane begin descending towards Charlotte.

We touched down on Runway 18L at 3:07 pm.

We then taxied to our gate and arrived at gate E16, at 3:11 pm, around 12 minutes ahead of schedule.