On Thursday, 6/4, I arrived at the airport my usual couple hours early (arrived around 10:00 AM) for my 12:00 flight to BWI for a vacation. The only thing weird about it was that we didn’t use our usual Preflight parking, but opted for the crowded airport parking lot. It was a little bit of a walk to the terminal, but once we got in, and checked in, we fell into the normal routine. We went to join the ever-present TSA line, where we were surprised to find out that the PreCheck line was actually longer than the regular line. After we got through the whole security ordeal, we headed to my personal favorite delta sky club, the one on concourse A, over the buffalo wild wings, and next to P.F. Changs. This is my favorite because it offers one of the best ramp overviews out of all of them. After killing some time there, and walking around the airport taking the several photo-ops that presented themselves to me, we headed to the gate, where we meet our ride to Baltimore, the MD-90. Upon boarding, I was pleasantly surprised to see that delta had given these old birds a face lift, with the new first class, and delta Comfort+ seating, along with new seats in the main cabin. I found my seat, and began to settle in for the relatively short flight. I had a window seat, so I had a good opportunity to take even more pictures, which you can see on the Instagram page (@aviation_atlanta). Once airborne, I began to dive in to the inflight amenities, which were limited to pretty much just the sky magazine, since Sky Mall is no more, and there was no IFE system. The FA’s refreshment service began right as we hit our cruising altitude, and I was this time UNpleasantly surprised at how much delta has been cutting back on the options for the passengers flying in the main cabin. There was still the usual choice of soft drinks, but instead of the usual peanuts, pretzels, or cookies, there was pretzels, pretzels, or pretzels… Come on delta. Other than this slight disappointment, the flight was great, with the pilots pulling off a great landing, and overall, it was great to be back on this older aircraft. Once on the ground in BWI, there were a few things that really stood out. The most blatantly obvious being the fact that the airport is SOLID. BLACK. This was weird, and the inside wasn’t much better. It seemed kind of unorganized, with things spread out all over the place, and arranged pretty randomly. Also, I’m not sure if the airport was going through some (much needed) renovations, or if this was normal, but the entire ceiling was ripped out, with all of the pipes and wires creating an unsightly eyesore. Once down in baggage claim, it took forever for our bags to get here, with the first half of the bags from Atlanta being offloaded, but the second half did not arrive until a flight from new york was unloaded. The last irritation of the airport was the rental car shuttles. The only bus stop by the baggage claim is stop 3, and by the time the first two busses got there, they were already full. We managed to get on the third bus, and with that, our BWI experience came to a close.
SCORING (0-10 scale)
TSA: 6
DEPARTURE AIRPORT: 9
AIRCRAFT: 8
IFE: N/A
REFRESHMENTS: 3
ARRIVAL AIRPORT: 2
SCORING (0-10 scale)
TSA: 6
DEPARTURE AIRPORT: 9
AIRCRAFT: 8
IFE: N/A
REFRESHMENTS: 3
ARRIVAL AIRPORT: 2