I was going down to Florida for Thanksgiving. The two days leading up to it I had a two day trip. The last flight of the trip was DCA-LGA, and we were landing at LGA around 9:00pm. I wanted to go down to Florida that night. I was hoping one of the flights to PBI, FLL or MIA would be a little delayed. Since they were all leaving around 9:00pm. We ended up departing Runway 4 at DCA. It was my first time taking off from that runway. That saved a few minutes, as it was a straight out departure to the northeast. We also landed Runway 4 at LGA. This meant a straight in approach, saving a few minutes if we had landed the other way. There was a Spirit flight to FLL and an American flight to Miami that were a little delayed. I was hoping I would be able to make one of them. The Captain said he would do the walk around, so I could get right off. But unfortunately, there was a problem with the jetway. The way the agent had attached it there wasn’t room to open the door all the way. Then it broke and she couldn’t get it off the plane, to be able to reattach it. It took about 25 minutes to be able to finally open the door. By this point it was to late to try to make one of the two flights. The only other flight was a Frontier flight from LGA-MIA, that was supposed to depart at 10:45pm. I would have done this flight and just gotten in very late. But, it was delayed. It didn’t end up leaving LaGuardia until 1:30am, and landed in Miami at 4:00am. After this I would have an hour and a half drive from the Miami airport to where I live. I didn’t want to do this. I decided to just go back home to where I live in NY, and take the early morning flight to West Palm Beach. It was a little before 11:00pm, when I got back. I woke up the next morning after a solid 2 hours of sleep, a little before 4:00am. I was in an Uber for the airport at 4:40am. The driver ended up taking two or three wrong turns on the way to the airport so it took a little while to get there. I was dropped off outside of Terminal B around 5:20am. I got randomly selected going through the crew line at security, so I had to go through the regular Pre Check line. That took a few extra minutes, and I was at the gate a few minutes after 5:30am. The gate agent was nice and gave me a seat up front in row 4



jetBlue 2261
New York, NY (LGA) – West Palm Beach, FL (PBI)
Airbus A320
N746JB
Seat 4F
Scheduled Departure Time – 6:00am
Actual Departure Time- 6:15am
Scheduled Arrival Time – 8:53am
Actual Arrival Time- 8:36am
2 hours 21 minutes





This would be my first time flying on the NY Jets plane. It spent the night at gate 31 after arriving the night before from Nashville





4F



We were parked next to N635JB. I have flown N635JB from JFK-PDX. It was supposed to be flying LGA-DEN later in the morning, but it ended up spending the entire day at LGA. It flew the same flight LGA-DEN the next day



I was one of the last people to board. After a quick stop up front to confirm with the captain it was good with him if I rode in the back, I made my way back to my seat. There was no room for my bag around where I was sitting. The first space that was available was over the emergency exit row. Once I got settled in my seat, the guy on the aisle seemed interested in having a conversation. He was visiting his family in Florida for Thanksgiving. He was excited to see them, and was telling me all about it. He also filled me in on what type of business he had, where he was traveling to over Christmas and how long it took him to get to the airport and how surprised he was at how busy the airport was this early in the morning. I was really tired, and wasn’t feeling up to 2 and a half hours of conversation. So after a few minutes of talking, I saw an opportunity to shut down the conversation and took it. I then put on my headphones. The door was closed at 5:50am and we were pushing at 5:57am, 3 minutes ahead of our scheduled departure time. We were one of the first flights scheduled for the day at 6:00am. A few planes besides us all started pushing around the same time



Taxiing out of the ramp alongside N15710, about to taxi for its flight to Houston



The sun was just starting to come up as we made our way out of the ramp



Runway 13 was the active this morning. The ground controller gave us our initial taxi instructions. A few seconds later he called us back, and changed our initial departure to the Coney Climb. I have been flying out of LGA for 7 months, and haven’t flown it yet. It is not that complicated. It just involves a right turn to a 180 heading to intercept a radial off of the Canarsie VOR (CRI) just south of JFK. He gave a few other planes this climb too. Typically on southbound flights out of LGA, you end up flying to the north and west of LGA before you are given a turn to the south. With this new departure it would be right turn, and fly straight south over JFK airport. The ground controller told us we would be #1 on the other side. The pilot of my flight, came back and said they would need a few minutes (presumably to deal with the new departure). The ground controller advised us to cross Runway 22 and to taxi on Alpha – Alpha (AA), Golf (G), and to hold short of Charlie – Charlie (CC) and to let them know when we were ready. After a minute or two of sitting, the controller told us we could depart in three minutes, or it would be 12-15 minutes for spacing. They said they would be ready within the three minutes. So he instructed us to follow a Mesa E-175 to the runway and switch to the tower frequency





“jetBlue 2261 wind 050 @ 5, runway 13 cleared for takeoff. Coney Climb”





We checked in with the Departure controller and were cleared to 10,000ft. We were then handed off to the next sector, who cleared us to 17,0000ft.





Climbing out of NY







We initially went up to 34,000ft. By the time we leveled off, it was pretty much light outside. Not long after reaching our cruising altitude the flight attendants came through with the service



N389FR was flying PHL-PBI





Cruising





Just before we headed out over the water between South Carolina and Florida, we went up to 36,000ft



Just as we were starting the initial descent, a little build appeared just to the right of us







Descending



There was a very low Broken/Overcast layer around the airport in West Palm Beach. The approach controller was talking to a Cessna who was having difficulty maintaining VFR at 1,500ft. It was more scattered then overcast closer to the airport, and we were able to get a visual approach











Turning base



Final 10L





Touchdown



Once we were off the runway, it was a quick taxi to gate C16



The Frontier flight I had seen up in the air, landed right after us from Philadelphia





N746JB flew right back up to LaGuardia



After two quick days in Florida, it was time to head back to NY. A lot of the flights were pretty full. I decided to fly out of FLL as opposed to PBI. There was the Delta flight that I got on. There was also two jetBlue flights after to JFK and LGA as well. Between the three flights I was hoping to get a seat, and luckily I got one on the first flight. I was starting a 4 day trip the next day. My report time wasn’t until 8:00pm, but I wanted to back the night before just to be sure I made it.

Delta 2292
Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL) - New York, NY (JFK)
Boeing 737-800
N3766
Seat 33F
Scheduled Departure Time – 7:59pm
Actual Departure Time- 8:10pm
Scheduled Arrival Time – 10:50pm
Actual Arrival Time- 10:32pm
2 hours 22 minutes





N3766 from outside the terminal. It had arrived from JFK



Once I got inside the line for security wasn’t that long. But the gate was busy with a few flights departing. This was my first time in Terminal 2 at FLL, since it had been redone. It looked a lot better then the last time I had been here. The gate agent called for standbys and she said she had a middle seat in row 17, an aisle seat in 24 or a window in 33. I took the window in 33, which was the last row. My seat mates on this flight seemed like they were having a rough time, and were about to get divorced or soemthing. They were very rude with each other, and I could sense a lot of tension between them. Plus it was the last row, and kind of cramped being stuck in the window next to them. It made for a long flight up to New York



Boarding



33F, next to C-FYNS before a flight to Montreal



We pushed back a few minutes ahead of schedule, and it wasn’t long before we were taxiing to 10L. We followed the Delta 737-800 that was going to LGA, to the runway









Passing The Bahamas as we climbed up to 37,000ft



This was one of the worst flights I had been on in a while. There was a kid who cried for a while, the awkward couple sitting next to me and decent turbulence for the second half of the flight. The screen was showing the incorrect flight time remaining, but the flight felt like it took 7 hours



I spent the flight looking at the time counting down, and after what felt like forever, we were finally descending





Once the gear was already down a woman got up and started to walk back towards the bathroom. The flight attendant made an announcement that they needed everyone to be seated immediately or we wouldn’t be able to land. By the time she sat back down we were on short final





We were the last arrival on 22L, before they switched the runways around. As soon as we landed, I could see traffic lined up for 31R



After a very long flight, I was glad to be getting off the plane



N3766 spent the night at gate C61, before departing the next morning to Fort Myers



It had been a quick trip down to Florida. I was lucky enough to get Thanksgiving off, and was able to fly to and from Florida relatively easily considering how busy the days surrounding Thanksgiving are.