Flying Home

We cannot express how much more enjoyable it was to travel by train than by plane. First of all, we arrived at the airport at around 12:30 for a 2:45 flight. We had figured that once we got through security that we would sit down and have a nice lunch. That was until we looked at the board and our boarding pass to find out that the airline had moved us to the 1:30 flight. By now it was 12:45 and boarding was going to begin at 1:00. So, we quickly got in lines for food, grabbed what we could, and moved to the end of the terminal only to get on the flight.

But then the fun really started. Now that you have to pay $15 for each bag you check, everyone and their mother, sister, brother, father, you get the picture is carrying on all of their bags. And you of course know that everyone wants their bags in the overhead space above their seat. Along with the fact that no one owns a bag that fits in that space. We spent more time waiting for people to get their stuff situated than anything else.

Finally, we got to Charlotte, but we had no idea if the airline had made any other switches of our flight, so we tried to get off of the plane as soon as we could so that we could consult a board. Well, they had left our next flight alone, so we now had two hours to spare. The nice thing about the Charlotte airport is that they have many food choices and little stores, beyond the generic airport store, so we had plenty of things to entertain ourselves with.

Then, the time came to wait even longer as everyone and their daughter, son, wife, cat, dog, had a fit about where their luggage was, and that they didn't want to check it. My question is, if they check your bag once you are on the plane, do they still charge you the $15? I would guess no because since they now charge for drinks ($7 for beer/wine, $2 for soda/water, and $1 for tea or coffee) and you have to cough up the cash, and it didn't appear that those with checked luggage were having to pay, so maybe that is the way to get around the system. Try to carry on things, but ask them to check it.

This leg of the flight was awful since Philadelphia cannot handle the volume of traffic coming into it at night, so we were circling with planes above and below us (pretty neat when you see it out the window). But, the pilot kept us abreast of the Eagles' progress in the game so that must have been his way of trying to keep everyone happy.

Needless to say, we did not enjoy flying on US Airways and would consider taking the train again, if anything so that we could avoid having to deal with all of the crazies.