PREFACE- HAPPY NEW YEAR!
This was my first flight of the new year! Happy New Year!
Check In
Pitt-Greenville Airport in Greenville, NC is one of the smallest airports that I’ve ever flown out of. There’s only one airline that serves the airport: American, with only one destination: Charlotte.
Check In is pretty easy. There’s a single ticket counter for American with two lanes, one for regular economy passengers, and one priority lane for status holders, passengers in premium cabins… etc.
It’s important to keep in mind that when flying out of PGV that, although it’s a small airport and you can get through pretty quickly with no checked bags. If you are checking a bag, the bag cutoff time is 45 minutes prior to departure. This is very important because the American Airlines operation utilizes cross-utilization agents. Meaning the agents that work the ticket counter, also work the gates, and the ramp. So, at the 45 minute mark, they leave the ticket counter to go to the gate and the ramp to take care of things, and there will be NOBODY at the ticket counter. I’ve seen people miss their flights out of PGV because they’ve arrived 20 minutes before departure with a checked bag thinking they could make it- nope.
There are also two self-service kiosks for if you just need to print a boarding pass. This is the option that I chose since I didn’t have a bag to check. I didn’t want to take up any more time of the agents who had to check in other people. These cross-utilization agents have a lot of work to do already, and I was done within a few minutes.
Security and Terminal
Once you have your boarding pass, you head upstairs to security and the gate area. I proceeded to the TSA checkpoint. Note, that there is no separate line for TSA PreCheck, but when you get up to the podium and hand the agent your boarding pass and ID, they will process PreCheck passengers separately, so you don’t have to remove your jacket, shoes, belt, or electronics. It’s great that they offer this.
Security took some time. I was the only one in line and for some reason, they decided to take every single item out of my bags and test them. And I had to repack it. It wasn’t fun, but hey, that’s just the way it goes sometimes!
Once you’re through security, there’s only one way to go, and that’s the gate area.
PGV has 3 gates. However, gate 1 is the only one that’s really ever used. The other two gates are really just there in case there’s any expansion or if there’s a delay or something where they need additional parking spaces.
The gate area is really nice. I mean, really nice. There’s plush leather armchairs everywhere and even rocking chairs near the windows. It really looks like a nice airport lounge, and honestly- nicer than some of the Admirals Clubs I’ve been in. It’s really not a bad place to wait for your flight.
Keep in mind there’s no food in this terminal. There’s a vending machine with snacks, but that’s all you’ll find.
Boarding, the Cabin, and the Seat
The inbound aircraft arrived in from Charlotte ahead of schedule, around 10:00 a.m. Once those passengers and their luggage was offloaded, we would begin boarding.
Boarding began at 10:25, exactly 30 minutes before departure.
American Airlines boards by group number, as indicated on your boarding pass. Your group number is based upon your status level, credit card benefits, seat assignment, fare class, etc. The boarding groups for AA can be found here.
I boarded with Group 5, which I have with my Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select Credit Card.
The ERJ-145 has very small overhead bins, which can really only hold small personal items. So, larger roll-a-board carry ons will have to be gate checked with a valet tag, and you can pick it up in the jetbridge when the flight lands. In my case, my bag was tagged, and I would pick it up in Charlotte.
The ERJ-145 is arranged in an all economy 1-2 configuration. The only seats with extra legroom really are the bulkhead seats in row 3, and also the exit row seats in row 12.
I made my way down the aisle to my seat, 13A, the solo window seat on the left side of the aircraft.
The seat features 30 inches of pitch, 17 inches of width, and 1 inch of recline. It’s really not comfortable for a flight longer than 2 hours, in my opinion. Though, I used to fly these regularly on 2.5 hour flights with Continental out of Houston back in the day.
My seat offered great views of the wing.
The cabin is in a word, dated. It looks old and very used and has definitely seen better days.
The Flight
At 10:45, the boarding door was closed and the jetway was disconnected, and the safety demonstration began.
We departed the gate a few minutes ahead of schedule at 10:49a.m., not with a pushback, but with a straight out turn from the gate area. It was cool.
At 10:53, we were holding short of Runway 20 for departure. We held there for several minutes with no communication from the flight crew. I’ve flown out of PGV several times and know that this is because we have to await our clearance wheels up time for traffic flow, but it would have been nice to have had some communication from the cockpit on this- as people were getting antsy about something being wrong.
At 11:03 we took runway 20 for departure.
At 11:07, we reached 10,000 feet, meaning that we were well on our way to Charlotte.
At 11:10, the flight attendant came on to welcome us onboard. She told us that due to the short duration of this flight, complimentary beverages would be served only upon request. She also informed us that there’s no WiFi on this aircraft and that there’s one lavatory, located in the very rear of the cabin.
At 11:12 a.m., we reached our cruising altitude of 16,000 feet.
AA does not offer Wifi or any sort of in flight entertainment on their ERJ-145s, so you’ll have to rely upon your own in flight entertainment. There are also no power outlets. I listened to some music that I downloaded on my phone for the flight.
Descent and Arrival
At 11:20, I felt the aircraft begin to descend, with no announcement of our descent from the flight crew.
At 11:45, we were on our approach into CLT.
At 11:53, we touched down on Runway 36R, and began our taxi into the gate thereafter.
We then began our taxi to the gate, which was short, and parked at gate E43 at 11:57 am, for a 26 minute early arrival! This made me happy as my previous 30 minute connection time was now almost an hour long!
The unloading of the valet tagged bags took quite some time. We waited about 15 minutes for the bags to come out.
