Getting the Edge! --Returning from LAX

[jazzyspreetsingh]

Getting The Edge! --Returning from LAX
Southwest Airlines
LAX-MCI

Preface
I am taking this trip to go to the national Future Business Leaders of America competition. This competition took place in Anaheim, CA on June 25th-28th, and it is where the best people from every state go and compete. I was competing in the same event I did in DECA at the ICDC (see a previous trip report I wrote). I was on a team that wrote a business plan about a unique insurance company, and we got the opportunity to compete nationally for a second time!

I will talk about how I spent my time in Anaheim, and about FBLA and the competition in a post following this report.


Basic Information
Airline: Southwest (WN)
Flight: 569
Equipment: 737-300 with winglets
Date: June 29th, 2009
Route: SMF-LAX-MCI-FLL
Route: LOOP4 DAG LAS J146 HBU J28 GCK J110
FRACA EMP JHAWK6
Reg: N376SW
Depart: 8:01
Arrive: 12:48


Getting to the Airport
I woke up at 3am...or more like my friend woke me up because I told him to wake me up at 3.

I didn't feel like waking up, because I did not want to come back to Kansas, and I was not excited!

I did some last minute packing, and got ready, and headed down to the lobby to meet with everybody from my school.

We took Super Shuttle to LAX, and it was alright.

Arriving at the Airport
We arrived at LAX at around 5:40ish, and it was really busy! (which was what I was expecting). We saw that checking-in inside would take forever, so we decided to do it outside and do it. It took about 5 minutes, and saved a bunch of time!

The LAX sign while we were driving to LAX


OMG!!! I was super excited to see this bird! This is the best shot I got of it! It is a Delta 767 with winglets! This was my first time seeing a 767 with winglets in person, and they were HUGE!


It looks like WN's LAX operations were in full swing this morning at LAX! Almost every gate at terminal 1 was occupied! Here is a bad pic I got of 5 WN jets on the east side of T1.


The very busy WN ticket counters!


The outside of the terminal


We then went through security--surprisingly no hassles again! (I usually never have any problems except with the TSA in Kansas City though...) But I was happy! The line to get through security though--umm....it didn't make me happy at all. It was about a 15 minute wait. (Keep in mind I'm from Kansas City, and on a busy day it will take at most, 5 minutes to get through security!--unless it is extremely busy, which doesn't happen too often)


After getting through security, I saw a ton of aircraft and I got excited!

I stopped by my gate (4B) to see if my aircraft had arrived, and it wasn't there, so I decided to wander around terminal 1 to get pictures!

I took a TON of pictures here, but I won't post as many in this trip report, because I'm sure seeing like 50 billion additional pictues of WN jets probably won't make you enjoy this report!

Four HP tails! It looks like they were pretty busy this morning! (there is 3 you can easily see, and there is just the tip of one of the tails hiding behind a jetway)


An old colored jet! I don't see too many of these anymore!


I thought this would make a neat picture. It didn't work out because of the bad lighting, but it's still an attempt.


I wanted to go to Starbucks, because I only go there on special occasions. (flying is a special occasion!) I got a vanilla bean frappacino, and then decided to walk around the terminal some more. The wait in line was about 15 minutes, which wasn't too bad for LAX...

Here is a pic of the food court area in T1


After getting Starbucks, I decided to vist gate 2 and get pictures. It reminded me a lot of the last time I was in LAX. (gate 2 was where my flight last time arrived.)

Here is a pic of an AS jet landing, with a WN jet and 2 old colored HP jets.


Some art in the hallway you have to walk down to get to Gate 2.


FIDS. Everything looking on time!


The next couple of pictures were taken while I was walking around the terminal doing some spotting. I was excited, and kept constantly moving, and it was hard for me to stay in one place!

A UA Airbus


DL 757 being towed to the NW gates


United Express Embraer 120


For some reason, I really like shots like this.


Boarding poles


WN bird being pushed


United Express CRJ-700 landing, with condensation trails behind it!


VX Airbus and a WN 737


I went back to gate 4B, and decided that I was going to sit and wait for my flight to arrive, and hang out with my teacher and friends. I got this shot of a plane at 2.


That's when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was an aircraft landing, and it looked really unique! I realized it was Maryland One!!! I then raced down to the other end of the terminal to shoot it! I was hoping that this bird was mine, and I was getting really excited! I then saw this bird taxi by my gate, and then I got depressed...lol


And like any extreme airline geek would do, I got my picture taken in front of it! I got a really nice WN pilot to take this picture of me! I talked to him for about 10 minutes, and he was cool. When I told him I was an avition enthusiast, he was like " I can put you on a flight with 6 stops, and by then you wouldn't be an enthusiast anymore!" --lol!! (but I was secretly wishing he could do that! I would totally LUV to be on a flight with 6 stops!) He joked around a lot, and he was pretty cool! It was fun talking to him!


The back half of Maryland One


Boarding
Boarding went pretty smoothly. I had position A26, which was good! I was kind of sad though, because when I checked in online my ticket said I had "A2" and I was like yay!!!! Then 3 seconds later, the 6 appeared, and I got sad. But I was still really happy to get A26!

Here is a pic of N376SW after it came in from Sacramento, and it was getting prepared to head to Kansas City/Ft. Lauderdale as flight 569.


They called Business Select, and then A15-30, and then I headed down the jetway.




I usually sit behind the wing, and I love it there. When I went to DECA my friends started complaining about sitting behind the wing, and on flight coming to LAX my friends started complaining because they had to wait 5 minutes for me to get off.....umm, it doesn't matter where I sit, because I will still take forever to get off the plane! I will always stop by the flight deck and chat for a bit after the flight! (depending on if the pilot has time to chat)

I sat in seat 9F this time.


Taxi and Takeoff
The bags were loaded onto the plane, and we were quickly on our way out to runway 24R.

Here is a video of the pushback and safety demo. It was another funny safety demo!


A WN jet seen right before we took off.


As the flight attendant said, it was time to "Shake and Bake" and we were on our way!


Here is a video of the takeoff. You can see some nice condensation forming around the wing right after rotation!


A nice view of the Marine Layer after taking off from LAX


The hills where the rich people live


A shot of the wing


In-Flight
This was another awesome WN flight crew! While they weren't as funny as the previous flight crew, they were still pretty cool. The flight was relaxing, quiet and enjoyable. There were some fun moments on the flight though, and it was overall an outstanding flight crew!

Heading east to Kansas City


Still Climbing




I thought that this was a pretty cool shot of the front of the engine + some clouds




Snack and beverage service began. They only did one beverage service during this flight (not like the 3 WN had on my previous flights...but that's okay, because I only get something on the first one...I just think it's cool they usually have 3 of them. But this flight only had 1, and it was still fun)

They did not serve the famous peanuts on this flight, which I was kind of sad about. I think it was because someone could've had a peanut allergy or something. But that's okay and I was happy with what I got on this flight! I had a Dr. Pepper again, and my friend had hot chocolate--I just wanted to get a picture of the new LIFT cup.


Here is a picture of the drink menu on WN. They have a lot of free options!

Oh, when they were taking drink orders on the flight, my friend decided to ask for his soda "on the rocks". lol, the flight attendant was like "WTF...okay??" and then started laughing...lol

The front


the back


A picture of the shiny engine! I could see the aircraft's reflection during the flight! It was pretty cool! For some reason my picture didn't capture the reflection that well...


The Grand Canyon from the air.






Something caught my attention! I saw this bird off in the distance!


Using my camera's zoom. I thought this bird would be with us for a while, so I decided to show this picture to my friends, seat mates and even the flight crew wanted to see it. I then returned back to my seat and saw the bird turning closer and it was impressive! It was closer than I have seen any jet before! I put my camera back in photography mode and tried to snap a shot--but it was too late. That photo would've made an impressive photo, but I guess this is just as good.


The Rockies


It started to get cloudy again, so I didn't get any good pictures of them from the air.


Starting to fly over Kansas.


Yay Kansas....


The top of the engine


Cabin shot.


Shot in between the seats.


Winglet shot!


I thought this made a cool shot.


Approach and Landing
Sadly this flight was coming to an end.

I had a lot of fun, and the crew was really friendly. It was a fun flight. This was probably my last flight until next year's DECA ICDC, so I was kind of sad, but I was trying to enjoy the experience!


The Missouri River


We were making our approach onto 1R, and downtown Kansas City could be seen off in the distance.


The Kansas Speedway




The white building in the foreground is Nebraska Furniture Mart (a popular furniture store in KS) and the redish/browning building is The Great Wolf Lodge. (it's pretty much an indoor water park)


A view of the wing.


We came in on Runway 1R. Here is a video of the landing.


Turning off the runway


An AA MD-80 at Terminal C


I can see four birds in this picture. The winglet of my jet, a WN jet taking off, an AA MadDog, and an actual bird! (in front of the AA tail)


A Northwest jet in bowling shoe colors! I've always thought they looked really ugly, but I will somewhat miss them when these are gone!


As you can see, MCI is a very busy place.


A WN jet getting prepared to go somewhere.


An HP Airbus taking off. With WN tails in the foreground


This was another awesome WN flight!
The flight crew of this flight treated everyone with typical Southwest Hospitality, and the flight was enjoyable. I really look forward to taking my next Southwest flight!

My seat.


Forward Galley


the flight deck. I talked to the first officer a little after the flight, and he was really cool!


A view of the gate at MCI out of the Captain's seat.


We pulled into gate 35, and this was my first time being in this half of the terminal. I didn't realize that until I got OUTSIDE OF SECURITY!!! I have always wanted to come to this side of the terminal so I could get pics of the YX, FL, and UA gates!


Because we were around gate 35, it meant we had to walk to walk to the baggage claim on the other side of the airport, which meant a fun walk!

Here is the WN check-in counters!


The bags started coming soon after I got there.


A WN jet taxied by the windows near the baggage claim.


Additional Pictures
My mom got off of work a little late, and she was going to give my friends and I a ride, so we got to spend an extra 30 minutes at the airport...I wasn't complaining!

I caught the stobe + another WN jet getting into position on 1R.


The Arizona HP jet!


YX landing on 1R, while a WN jet is holding


A DL MadDog coming in!


I like these types of shots...


After my friends and I collected our bags, I wanted to go to lunch at the Burger King at MCI. (my 2 friends weren't hungry) I didn't know that it was on the 2nd level, and it was cool when I found that out! It gave me a good view of the airport! If it wasn't for the tinted windows and really bad reflections, it would be the perfect place for spotting!

A view of the terminal from the 2nd level


the gate area for gates 37-39


WN and YX jets


A UA 737 in "battleship" colors!


two WN birds!


A WN bird with a "Charles E. Taylor" sticker


A Midwest ERJ with a Great Lakes aircraft


We finished up with lunch and headed back down.

I thought this would make a cool looking picture.


My mom finally arrived at the airport, and we went outside.

Here is a pic of the YX gates...all of them were empty.


Outside of the terminal


On the drive home I saw this American MD-80, and quickly snapped a picture of it!


In the morning I was at one of the greatest airports in the world, a little after noon I was at a good sized airport, and then by the late afternoon I was by my home airport thinking about how I was at LAX that morning...

This is at the Johnson County Executive Airport...if you think about it, it is kind of like Maho Beach, but without the beach or cool aircraft. There is a sidewalk right behind the runway, and aircraft fly really close to your head if you're standing on it...I rarely go there because this airport sucks and has even less movements than MCI does, but if you are patient and love GA aircraft you can probably get a good picture here.


The car ride back to my house was ummm....interesting. My mom decided to talk to my 2 friends about Indian people stuff. (they were Indian so it was cool, but I'm an ABCD so I had no idea about most of the stuff they was talking about), and in this conversation my mom managed to bring up many different subjects...The conversations were about the ACT and SAT tests, cooking Indian food, Bollywood actors, and my mom somehow managed to mention the Bloods and Crips.

After dropping both of my friends off at their houses, my mom pulled into my driveway, and right as I was about to get out of the car, she pulled back out of the driveway! Apparently, we had to go to the local Indian store to buy stuff!

I hope you enjoyed my report, and I would appreciate any comments!

[jazzyspreetsingh]

The conference and Anaheim!

June 25th
This was the first day we were in Anaheim, and it was awesome!

We got to our hotel (the Anaheim Hilton) and went to our rooms. The room I was in was on the 6th floor, and it had to be in the most inconvenient place! It was really hard to get to, and it was a long walk from the elevators and stairs!

Here is a picture of the hotel. (taken from the 19th floor of the Anaheim Marriott)


And here is a picture of our room. There were 3 Indian people sharing this room...surprisingly it did not smell like curry


Our room had a pretty good view of Space Mountain and the Matterhorn at Disneyland


After checking out our room, we decided to go and grab some lunch at Taco Bell. I always love going to Taco Bell! I can usually get full for under $2.50! (I am a cheap Indian b******, lol!)

Once we returned from Taco Bell we were hard at work rehearsing our presentation for our business plan! "It was on!" and we were aiming to win at the Future Business Leaders of America National Leadership Conference! (FBLA NLC '09)

I found out that one of my friends was in Anaheim at the same time as I was, and he was on vacation! (I was supposed to have another friend here, but he got a better deal on a different date by flying Virgin America... I wanted to meet up with him because he's my friend, and a couple months ago I let him borrow one of my USB Cables, and I kind of need it back! )

Anyways, later that evening the opening session started. There were close to 8,000 people there! (DECA's had almost 14,000 though...I still DECA...I won't forget it!)

There was really good music, and it began great. Then it started to become boring, and there was a keynote speaker...apparently he's been on TV, on the Travel Channel and a couple other networks...I have never even heard of him...but I don't watch TV, so I probably wouldn't know him. (I don't even have cable)

Here is a picture of the convention center we used for FBLA...not as cool as the one used for DECA, but it was still cool.


My school district was well represented.


Here is a picture of the stage from the opening session. The entire convention center was filled with a ton of people! A lot of states had neon items and it looked really cool in the dark!


The opening session finished around 9:30ish, and after that I just hung out with my friends until midnight when we went back to our rooms.

June 26th
This was the day we were competing. The entire morning we were rehearsing our presentation, and hoping that we would win! It was time for our presentation, and we were really confident! We walked in and pretty much nailed our presentation!

Then after we finished the judge had a chance to ask questions, and he had an issue with the liquidity ratio of our company (or something like that), and then the good feeling I had went away.

After our presentation we tried to relax as much as we could, and we decided to go to Downtown Disney and look around!

It was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel, and I got this pic of Disney's California Adventure during the walk


I don't have too many pictures from here (I used up all of the photos I could upload to Flickr! ) Here is a picture of the Disneyland Castle from one of the stores. But while we were there we got a ton of hilarious pictures!


The "California" letters in front of Disney's California Adventure!


I got my picture in front of every letter, and I'm going to turn it into a panoramic shot!


Part of Downtown Disney! It was huge, and they had a ton of (really expensive!) shops!


Going to Downtown Disney helped my team and I forget about the competition, and wondering if we placed or not, and we had a ton of fun hanging out there!

After that we met up with our school, and we had a huge debate on where we were going to dinner, because we wanted to go out somewhere together at least once during this trip.

We decided on California Pizza Kitchen! It was pretty good! I shared a Vegetarian Eggplant Pizza with one of my friends.


This shrimp was a major creeper...we ran into it everywhere we went! It was like it was following us! lol


After we came back from California Pizza Kitchen we wanted to see the results of the competition and we were really anxious to find out! And of course they didn't have the results posted

So we hung out by the pool for a while and then that's when I heard a bunch of big bangs and saw lights. I realized it was the Disneyland fireworks, and I raced up to my room to see them! (you couldn't see them from the pool)

here are a couple pictures I got of the fireworks


You can see the Mickey Mouse shape with one of the ears hidden, in one of the fireworks in this pic




After that we went back downstairs to see if the results were posted, and they were! We were really nervous about seeing them, but we wanted to find out if we made it! .....we didn't

We were really sad that we didn't make it, because we've worked so hard on the plan. But that was okay, because we had a ton of fun in Anaheim and we learned a whole lot while we were there!

June 27th
Since we didn't make it to the final round we had the full day to explore Anaheim!

We decided that we were going to go to the Anaheim Garden Walk, which is a large outdoor mall.


Some of the shops.


My friend and I arm wresting. You can guess who won!


We saw Transformers while we were there! It was awesome!

We saw it on IMAX! It was totally worth the extra $$$ to see it on IMAX!

I was being a cheap Indian and was like "I don't want to pay the extra $4 to see it on IMAX" and we were discussing it for almost 10 minutes. My friend finally convinced me to go see it on IMAX, and it was totally worth it!

The plot of Transformers wasn't the best, but it was still pretty good!

There was a scene with Southwest Airlines in it!!! All of my friends turned and looked at me during that scene! They didn't show any aircraft, but it was at a Southwest Airlines check-in desk! I wonder if they actually used WN employees for that scene? ...


June 28th
That morning we watched Law and Order or CSI or something for a while. (it was addicting!) then we decided to go somewhere they don't have in Kansas. We really wanted to go to In-N-Out Burger, but there wasn't one near our hotel, so we went to the next best place--Jack in the Box

It was good I guess...I got a strawberry milkshake, and some fries.


Then we stopped by a store and I bought a T-Shirt for one of my friends...it was a Lakers shirt, not one of those pink ones in this photo, lol.


After that we went back to the hotel and just hung out. We watched Juno, and more Law and Order!

I got some photography done also, I got this pic of a palm tree. I took a lot more pics, but I couldn't post all of them b/c i used up all my flickr space.


Then it was time for the closing session , I could not believe it was all ending! I was having a lot of fun!

Each state had something to identify it, and Kansas had sunflowers!


This is what it looked like in the dark!


The closing session was fun, and it was cool to see who won in each event. One of my friends one 8th place nationally in Public Speaking 1!

After the closing session we decided to go out one more time before we came back to Kansas. We went to The Cheesecake Factory, and it was pretty good. Here is a pic of the Anaheim Garden Walk at night.


After that I went to bed at around midnight, and got to wake up at 3 am the next morning!

June 29th
The entire trip report above is about this day, but here are 2 more pictures from this day.

Me in the flight deck of a 737-300


Me in front of a WN sign!

[ATrude777]

Hmmh, it looks like your -300 actually had the -700 interior?

The way to tell the diff is, did your tray table extend when you pulled it out? If it did, it was a -700 interior.

Great report!

Alex

[LondonJoe]

Nice report and nice photos, keep it up !

[jazzyspreetsingh]

Hmmh, it looks like your -300 actually had the -700 interior?

The way to tell the diff is, did your tray table extend when you pulled it out? If it did, it was a -700 interior.

Great report!

Alex

I don't remember if it extended out.

That's cool though! I never knew how to tell the difference between the interiors!

[rohank4284]

Very nice flight review, Jaspreet. Keep up the good work! Is your trip to Chicago likely to work out?

[jazzyspreetsingh]

Very nice flight review, Jaspreet. Keep up the good work! Is your trip to Chicago likely to work out?

It hasn't been looking good

My family doesn't want to pay more than $100 per person...and my mom wants to travel on a weekend so she doesn't have to take time off of work, and i think it will be impossible to find that price during the summer on a weekend!

Now we're looking at traveling during the middle of September / October, and it will most likely be on AA or UA.