Do you care what kind of plane you fly on?
October 21st, 2009 at 01:29pm Thomas V. Bona
Just wrote a story about the turbulent first year of Direct Air at Chicago Rockford International Airport, and their hopeful plans for the future.
One big change is the type of airplane they use here. When they started service from Rockford to Punta Gorda, Fla., they used these planes:
“Like walking into a nightclub”
This time, they’ll be using these planes:
Like walking into an airplane
Now, both planes will get you where you want to go in leather seat comfort. It’s just that the first one, a brand-new Airbus A320 from Virgin America, had mood lighting and in-seat entertainment centers. The second plane, a Boeing 737-400 from XTRA Airways, doesn’t have those things. Granted, the mood lighting isn’t alone going to draw people … especially the snowbirds headed to Fort Myers. But the entertainment centers are pretty snazzy.
But how big a deal is what plane it is? Either way, “in a couple hours, you’re in sunny Florida,” said Gary Quill, director of the Charlotte County Airport in Punta Gorda. It’s a good point. And the selling point of flying out of Rockford isn’t the planes, it’s the ease of getting to the airport, the free parking, the short security lines and the fares. Of course, when Direct Air broke out some old DC-9s last year, that rubbed some people the wrong way … so you can go too far in the other direction.
But do the amenities on a flight make a difference to you? If all else is relatively equal - fares, schedule,airport convenience - I prefer an airline with in-seat satellite radio, like AirTran, or in-seat TV, like Frontier. I also dig the move toward in-flight wifi. And I am the one who convinced my wife to let us drive to Midway to take Frontier so I could try the in-seat TV and use a new airline before it got gobbled up by another carrier (luckily it didn’t, and will survive intact). But generally, schedule, fare and convenience win out. Like my next trip, to NYC, where we fly outbound on a small Midwest plane instead of a snazzier AirTran plane because the schedule is better.
Still, I’d love to fly on one of those Virgin planes. Just would be nice if they went somewhere I wanted to go.
What are your thoughts?
Entry Filed under: Uncategorized
5 Comments Add your own
1. cortney | October 22nd, 2009 at 10:27 am
I dont care what the planes features are. as long as you get me to where i need/want to go in a timely matter. cost, schedule and being able to fly out of RFD is all i want. i think i can go 2-3 hours without a movie, its not going to kill me if i dont have in-seat or inflight entertainment. if i want a movie, i’ll bring my portable dvd player or ipod. its all about convience of going in and out of rfd for me
2. Bob Dornbush | October 22nd, 2009 at 10:33 am
I don’t recall, after flying to or from a destination of choice, ever once saying, “Wow, That was the coolest plane ride I have ever taken!”
Granted, the flight attendants & captain may have made it memorable by doing something nice or funny. But getting to and from the destination was the key. That made everything great.
3. gp | October 22nd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Get back to us when we can afford to travel again.
4. Will | October 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Its not really so much the amenities vs. the seats, the room or lack there of…
Virgin America’s Airbus A-319s are great planes. Seats are pretty comfy adequate leg room and decent shoulder space even if there are middle seats. USA Jet and their fleet of DC-9 variants.. are much more cramped, dingy and they look worn inside. Even if you avoid a middle seat on the one side of the aircraft. Xtra Airways 734’s should be much more what people are accustomed to in a 150 seat aircraft. Average seat, average room, average interior.
Bob… some folks do book or change flights to accommodate a plane type or some other aircraft related factor. I know I have changed flights many times to avoid taking aircraft types I don’t like.
Thomas….remember one more thing you get with Midwest/Republic’s Embraer jets… No middle seats.. There is alot to be said about having no chance of getting stuck between two monsters for a two or three hours…
But just about any plane is better than the United/Skywest CRJ-200’s that RFD had to Denver.
5. Sally Hanks | October 23rd, 2009 at 8:23 am
Mood lighting during the daylight hours makes me feel like I have a hangover and have to go back to the bar the next morning to retrieve my wallet.
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed