This segment of our trip began after the conclusion of visiting my wife's family in CT, NJ, NY and NYC, SC friends in PA, NC. In short like my wife said it felt like a tour of the East Coast kinda like a being in a rock band. It felt good to be back in the area after 1 1/2 yrs removed from living in MD-88.

The night before our flight from DCA we had to drive from a family friends house in Fayettville, NC after visiting her to our Best Western hotel in Oxon Hill, MD. We lived in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. We finally arrived at the hotel about 0100-0130. We needed to depart at 0600 for Enterprise to drop off our rental car in Crystal City near the airport. BTW I had to go back to the hotel to check for my wallet after we had already checked out in the morning(thank god we were only a mile away when I realized this). The fatigue had taken it's toll along with the constant driving, flying etc...

Finally after finding my wallet in the room we made our way to the Beltway and south over Woodrow Wilson Bridge only to enter the beginnings of rush hour (Thankfully it only took 30 mins to get to the exit for highway 1) to Crystal City vice the normal 45 mins- 1hr.

Finally we made it to Enterprise dropped off our rental and then were shuttled to DCA which made everything convenient and we could finally relax.

When we had finally arrived at the terminal everything was good no delays or anything. However once checking at the ticket counter we proceeded to the TSA Check-In luggage drop off area where there was only one screener working the area, we then dropped off our 2 bags for Check-In and proceeded to security check point and only took 5 mins to get thru. Everything was uneventful for the rest of the day. I wasn't expecting much more than a small snack or chips being on the short flight, although the airport restaurant snack bar had a good choice of healthy foods so I bought a Yoghurt with Granola before boarding the MD-88.

My Pictures of this flight

http://picasaweb.google.com/Mike8940...AATL2007_07_25

Date: Tue July 25, 2007
Segment: DCA-ATL
Flight: DL 419
Registration: Not able to see
Load Factor: 98%
Class: T
Aircraft: MD-88
Departure Gate DCA: Gate 19
Arrival Gate ATL: (Concourse B)
Departs: 1000
Arrives: 1147
Seat: 13A


SUMMARY OF THIS FLIGHT-

We took off without delays and received a breakfast snack choice with beverage for this 1hr 47 min flight it was sufficient. The verdict on this flight not much to report with the short flight. I think the FA's were doing a great job overall.
A pax sitting in front of me told me you usually dont get all these clear picture shot opportunities on descent in to the Atlanta area he was also snapping a lot of shots as well.

UPON REACHING ATL-

We had a 3 hour layover from time of deboard approximately so I decided to eat lunch at Chili's restaurant upstairs in Terminal A We traversed on the underground train from Terminal B to get to Terminal A really easy it was like a 1-2 min ride. Upon finishing our lunch we then proceeded to Gate A10. However our flight wasn't there yet. We still had a good hour-hour and a half til actual boarding. So my wife and daughter kept themselves entertained while I managed to wander around Terminal A for a bit before embarking on our cross country journey.

Pre-Boarding was smooth and everything was again uneventful we managed to take off only a few mins late.

Pics of this flight
http://picasaweb.google.com/Mike8940...LLAX2007_07_25

Date: Tue July 25, 2007
Segment: ATL-LAX
Flight: DL 885
Registration: N836MH
Load Factor: 100%
Class: T
Aircraft: 767-400ER
Departure Gate ATL : A10
Arrival Gate LAX: 58A (Concourse B)
Departs: 1450 (EST)
Arrives: 1621 (PST)
Seat: 18G


Arrival at our gate in LAX (Notice the large amount of remoldling/construction on the Restraunt middle right)

SUMMARY OF THIS FLIGHT-

Flying on the 764 was pretty impressive. I had more room than on the 752 SLC-DCA flight and was really comfortable. My daughter was seated next to me in 18F whilst my wife had seat 19G right behind me because of the 2-3-2 seat configuration we couldn't sit 3 abreast unless we grabbed middle of the plane seats I prefer window seats though. My wife also informed me upon completion of this flight that the young lady who had 19F next to her thought told my wife that she had the window seat. Since my wife is a nice person she is let the young lady have the window seat The lady was really dumb and doesn't know that G comes after F. However I doubt it she probably was insistent on getting the window seat.

FA'S AND SERVICE-

The FA's on this flight were really attentive to pax and weren't old and crabby like some UA FA's I have experienced. FYI we received the DL cheese and crackers snack pack again, and one other chips and beverage service 1-1 hr 15 mins away from landing. Of course I wasn't expecting much on domestic flights. What I have noticed is that DL give the cheese and cracker box for flights 4 hrs or more, and anything less than 4 hrs is a choice of 5 small snacks (chips, cookies, cheese and crackers etc...)

On UA they dont even give snack service on the flights (only beverages). Only on TED they handed out snacks and beverages on the DEN-RNO flight (pretty sad if you ask me).

The FA's on this flight were also working the LAX-HNL portion of this flight to my knowledge which departed about 1800 about the same time as my LAX-RNO flight. The only complaints on this flight was that the A/C was blowing way too cold, and the headphones I purchased for $2.00 only worked in mono (one-side) whereas the Song 752 SLC-DCA worked in stereo (Guess you get what you pay for).

The Inflight movie was (The Last Mimzy) , they also ran an episode of The Office after the movie as we were starting to descend in to LA.

I like the FA's new look uniforms they're very nice and refreshing. I also noticed all the seats on 5 different DL aircraft were all leather. The only seats that seemed worn out were the MD-90 and MD-88's no biggie they're all short flights. As everyone probably noticed I managed to get a lot of good shots, some even rare I was pretty lucky. If you think these shots are good wait til you see the shots I got from LAX-RNO trip (Part 3).

One other tidbit me and my wife noticed that the DL Terminal at LAX was a horrible there was garbage left on the floor, and the carpets were really dirty, and stained especially around gates 58A & 59A where we de-boarded and waited for our next flight.

Overall I was very impressed by DL I would fly them again. On a scale of 1-10 I give DL a 8. I might even consider flying to HNL with my wife on DL. I manages to earn over 5300 sky Miles this vacation each.

Thanks to everyone for reading these reports any of you're comments or questions are appreciated.

Regards, Mike