I love reading all your trip reports so I'm trying my hand at another, a short regional flight on American Eagle from New York Kennedy to Washington National. I welcome all feedback

I grew up on Long Island and now live about 10mins from DCA. I return home every 8 weeks or so to see my entire family in New York. There are many options for getting from DC-NY. Among them are multiple buses, Amtrak and numerous flights.

I usually stick with flying as if the weather is good, it is by far the quickest, if not cheapest way. Buses are unreliable, train is expensive and slow. Flying has the option of American Eagle and Delta Connection to JFK and the Delta and US Airways Shuttles to LGA. The shuttles are always way overpriced and since I despise Delta's JFK hell, I stick to AA Eagle whenever possible. I have flew with them on this route 11 times in the past 10 months. In fact I made a good friend and fellow A.netter on one of these flights once.

The flights used to be only ERD's but now they mix in CRJ700's. This is the return journey ... enough typing, let's get to the photos!

Since my parents were both at work, I got a town car to take me to the airport. We've been using the same people for ages and they are always early on time. The car was called for 3pm, but arrived promptly at 2:40pm.


I arrived in good time at JFK and got dropped off curbside at American's T8, which I adore. It's spacious and airy. As we were approaching the Europe block, security lines were long but TSA had every lane open, so it moved quickly. They were just many, many confused EU-passport holders

This is the view right upon exiting security ... wish more American airports were like this


AA has a gorgeous 'skyline of the world' mural in their main terminal


And looking back at the TSA or what you see when you make your way toward baggage claim


The terminal has a main pier and satellite connecting by underground moving walkway. This is in the main pier


First shot of an AA bird


Looking toward one of the international terminals


And more European heavies


More signs


Then a surprise ! They were filming a movie in the terminal


These are not travelers but rather movie extras standing in place for more takes. One was complaining that they were doing too many takes.


More of the camera set-up before I got yelled at. While it was cool to see film being shot, it was very disruptive as security was bossing around normal passengers and forcing them to walk in narrow corridors


Qatari jet


I decided to watch traffic for a bit so stood in the corner and watched


United premium service B757


American Eagle jet


Port Authority Police .. do they always drive with their emergency lights on?


Always enough seating and the seats are pretty comfy too


And for those of you who enjoy them .. the flight boards





And a shot of my ERJ .. about 10 years old


Since the overheads are tiny, baggage is gate checked. JFK has a great setup with automatic luggage gates and at DCA they just hand deliver on the jetbridge.... very much beats Delta's T3 CRJ zoo where you stand on a cold tarmac and there are no jetbridges. Plus you make your way through the high school staircase


Onboard, view from seat 4A ... part of the reason I love the ERJ's is that I like an aisle seat for legroom and window seat for views, so you get both on this bird


A380's are not so uncommon anymore


Surprisgsly we had a short lineup for take-off ;... they block these flights at around 90mins due to the numerous delays. The DCA-JFK was 30 mins in air and this JFK-DCA was 45mins .... so if JFK is 'working' you land quite early

The skies split for our takeoff


We took off right after a Turkish bound for Istanbul ... gave them a big window to get in front of us


New York right after takeoff


The flight was 100% full including the usual deadheading pilots.

Now no service was offered due to 'time,' I find this to be untrue as I've been served a drink on a 35min block time and on the 30min inbound, the FA at least offered water. Here there was nothing, the FA just stayed in his seat the entire flight. Does AA have any standard service times?

Legroom!


Good cloud layer for the first half of the flight


But a gorgeous sunset


We then flew over I-270 and I-495, the Capitol Beltway around DC. Of course traffic was horrendous as usual


Then as we lined up for river visual I was super excited as it was sunset so the views were going to be incredible. Here is Sibley Hospital in upper Northwest Washington


Lining up with the Potomac and Key Bridge


Georgetown University campus


Kennedy Center and Washington Monument


National Mall .. with reflecting pool still under construction ... sorry for the blurry, window was not clean


Washington Monument up close


We landed 30 minutes early and there was a gate ready. I did my usual trick at JFK and my bag was first on the jetbridge in DCA. Since I was starving, stopped for Panda Express at DCA and then to a taxi. Unusually, there were no lines. The Alexandira Union Cab Ford Edge took me home.

Thanks for reading, I welcome all comments, question, feedback.

Brian