This is my second TR on Airliners.net, the first one was my Spring Break trip to Florida on Allegiant. I decided that I wanted to go back to Washington DC after I went there my Junior Year in High School and my parents decided they wanted to go with me, so did my brother and my aunt and uncle met us up there as well.

We were able to find some cheap fares between DTW-DCA for I think it was 69.00 round trip, so we booked it Memorial Day Weekend for the end of June through early July. I planned it that way because the last day for the Summer Semester at Michigan State ended on the 28, so I figured it would be a nice transition into my summer break to relax before classes start up again.

I really wanted to try out the shuttle bus service between East Lansing (So State!) and Metro which is called Michigan Flyer. I left my house the night before and spent the night with my brother at his house so catch the early morning shuttle to make our departure.


Michigan Flyer
Coach 8194
Depart East Lansing – 4:30 am
Arrive DTW/NW Worldgateway – 6:40 am

So in order to get to DTW on time, we had to take the early shuttle so I got up at around 3:30, which was horrible because one of my brothers’ roommates had a couple people over and they were loud for a good chunk of the night so I couldn’t get a ton of sleep. The departure point for East Lansing was just down the block from his house, so we met up with the parental units and we were the only four to board at the EL station.

After making 2 more stops, and picking up about 10 more people, we arrived at Metro Airport. The driver stopped at the Berry Terminal and then the Smith and finally the McNamara Terminal and dropped us off. We were able to check in the night before on nwa.com, so all we had to do was check our luggage. There wasn’t much of a line, so we were able to check our bags and make it through security in about 10-15 minutes

We then decided with about 2 hours to go that it was time to get some early morning grub and there is a McDonalds on Concourse A so we got some of that and enjoyed each others company no matter how tired we were. To the gate we went, and we wanted to take the tram, but it was shut down so we walked. I didn’t mind walked, if only I knew how much walking would be involved over the next 5 days.








Northwest Airlines Flt. 238
Detroit Metro – Washington Ronald Reagan National
Scheduled Departure: 8:54 am
Actual Departure: 9:10 am
Gate: A76
Scheduled Arrival: 10:04 am
Actual Arrival: 10:12 am
Gate: 4
Aircraft Type: A319
Reg. Number: N342NB

View Large View Medium Photo © Paul Leach

View Large View Medium Photo © Bruce Leibowitz

This flight was pretty uneventful, considering it is just over an hour, so I couldn’t really “get interested” in anything, reading or listening to music, because by the time I would have been interested, it would have been time to shut it down and store for landing. I was amazed at how little we got. All we got was a glass of soda, and not even peanuts. When I flew FL last summer, at least we got a bag of 5 pretzels.



















It was time to take-off and we did, on our way to Washington. I was able to snap a couple of pictures en-route





The Captain came over the intercom and told us about the perimeter rule around DCA where you have to stay seated for final approach….which is something I have known for a long time. As we got closer, I got more and more excited since I had wanted to be back ever since we took the school trip long ago. I was hoping I would be on the correct side of the aircraft to see some of the monuments and memorials, but I wasn’t. Even with that, I did snap a picture of the Pentagon as we were landing.











We arrived in Terminal A, which NW controls gates 2,3,4,5 and other tenants of Terminal A include:

AirTran (Gates 1/9)
ATA (Gate 6)
Midwest (7/8)
Spirit (Gate 6)

I did notice something about Terminal A that I didn’t before; it is pretty small and sort of outdated in just it doesn’t look like it has been modernized in a while. From what I saw however, it did look like they were trying to update it somewhat.

[[The Trip]]

When we landed, we went to the hotel and waited for my aunt and uncle to show up and they did around 12:30, and we went out to Arlington National Cemetery. The Changing of the Guard is impressive every time one sees it. We took the TourMobile, because I walked it all last time and didn’t want to do it again.


Thurgood Marshall’s Grave


The Eternal Flame


Lee’s House


Arlington Amphitheater


Tomb of the Unknown Soldier


STS-107 Memorial


STS-107 Graves

Day 2

Friday, we just continued to sightsee and went to the National Air and Space Museum as well as Capital Hill which I couldn’t go to last time due to time constraints. The Supreme Court Was Awesome.













If you go to Capital Hill, arrange for a private tour because they would be much better than what we got.

Day 3

Saturday was all the Monuments which included getting to go up the Washington Monument. Thanks to my dad for getting up early enough to get the pics.







Day 4

Sunday, all we really did that day was go to the National Zoo and the National Cathedral. I was very excited for the Zoo because I have always wanted to see the Giant Pandas they have and we did.





The National Cathedral was awe-inspiring in just that it was mostly, not all built by hand and all the history that took place in there, such as State Funerals.



Day 5

Monday, we went to the National Archives saw the Charters of Freedom and a couple exhibits. If you plan on Going there, get there EARLY….as it crowds up fast. Later, we went to the National Museum of Natural History and saw the Hope Diamond as well as a weird 3-D movie about Lions.

Northwest Airlines Flt. 341
Washington Ronald Reagan National – Detroit Metro
Scheduled Departure: 12:41 pm
Actual Departure: 12:56 pm
Gate: 5
Scheduled Arrival: 1:43 pm
Actual Arrival: 1:57 pm
Gate: A5
Aircraft Type (Scheduled): B757
(Actual): A320
Reg. Number: N320US

View Large View Medium Photo © Karen Fletcher

View Large View Medium Photo © MSTAerodrome

The routine was pretty much the same it had been the entire week, met up with the family for breakfast around 8:30, then get ready to head out, except this time, instead of heading to the Metro station, we headed to the airport while my aunt and uncle headed home to Virginia Beach. We left the hotel around 9:15, a little early because we saw the security line in Terminal A was backlogged around that time when we got in, plus what recently happened over in the UK.

As it turns out, we left in the airport shuttle around 9:15 and made a couple stops at other hotels and were dropped off, luggage tagged and though security by 10:10 or so. There was no line at security whatsoever. When we were checking in though, I did notice that the busiest of those in Terminal A would to have defiantly been Midwest, as their line as close to going out the door.

With so much time to spare, I was able to get some airport pics, which included some inbound NW flights with one headed to MSP and the other to MEM. There were a couple Midwest flights, one to MKE and one to OMA.
















NW Headed to MSP











I was lucky enough to get a Window Exit Row seat something that hasn’t happened to me on an A320, so I got very excited. The flight was even shorter, so all I did was basically read the WorldTraveler July issue which had a nice feature story about NW’s Asia Operations. They had also updated the Fleet Information page to include the EMB addition to the fleet as well as Compass Airlines as an Alliance partner.









When we got to DTW, it was about 2:05 by the time we disembarked and wanted to again take the tram, but became temporarily unavailable as it reached the station. We made it to baggage claim by 2:15 and collected our bags





We booked ourselves on the return 5:20 Michigan Flyer not knowing if we were going to get delayed, but as it turned out we had so much time to spare that we were able to hop on the 3:20 and make it back to EL by 5:45.


Michigan Flyer
Coach 9594
Depart DTW/NW Worldgateway – 3:20 pm
Arrive East Lansing – 5:45 pm


It was a very laid back trip back to EL on the coach and I was able to catch up on a little bit of sleep I had lost over the last couple of days. We grabbed the car and headed to Wendy’s where I got a lot of food as I hadn’t eaten much all day.

[[Overall]]

Michigan Flyer: 10/10

They were on time and it very convenient as they drop you off and pick you right up outside the terminal and you don’t have to worry about parking a car. If you live near East Lansing, Lansing or Jackson, I recommend this very highly.

Northwest:

On Time 10/10

Efficient:7/10
-- The Tram wasn’t working either time which made the journey even longer and that is something I didn’t need
Service: 9/10
-- On the way down, we only got a glass of soda (I know, bring your own….) and it was also near the end of the month.

Professionalism: 8/10
-- The crew on the way down was not very friendly on the way down which was in stark contrast to the crew on the way back.


Not Being on a NW Cancelled Flight at the end of June: PRICELESS
-- I am really surprised that I wasn’t on one of them and it was just a great way to start out the vacation. Getting there when we where supposed to.

Overall: 34/40

Near the end of the month, it really had me worried that we would get cancelled and they crew not being as friendly as I had hoped really didn’t sit well with me. However, on the way back, even though I was extremely upset we didn’t get a 757, I did get an exit row seat and was able to get a full can of Soda.

Northwest might not always have the reputation of being the best airline at Customer Service, but they really do have a lot of good people out on the front lines making sure everyone gets to where they need to be as fast as possible. I really do have to hand it out especially to the people that work for NWA at DCA. As we arrived and went through security, the line got longer, and when I looked back, it was flowing nicely. Then, boarding came and it went off very, very smoothly.

Thanks NW for being apart of such as memorable experience for me.

Hope you enjoyed TR # 2

JetBlueGuy2006