Where can we go from here: State Capitals

Time for the oft-promised and delayed continuation of the "Where can we go from here" series. This time, I'm going to take a look at who goes to which of the state capital cities. Service to the state capitals is hampered by the fact that many states' capitals are not located in one of their larger cities. In fact, some of them are in cities which are for the most part unknown to non-residents. As examples, I'll cite Frankfurt, Kentucky; Jefferson City, Missouri; and Carson City, Nevada. Shockingly, there is no direct service from LAX to any of these. In fact, this has almost become a study of "Where we can't go from here: State Capitals"; of the fifty state capitals, only thirteen can be reached non-stop from LAX.

Phoenix, Arizona, is one of the better-served state capitals. Southwest, United, and US Air (nee America West) all operate regular flights to and from Phoenix. The United and US Air flights are often flown by their regional partner airlines, Skywest and Mesa, respectively. The US Air service was flown by America West prior to their merger earlier this year. The flight usually runs just under an hour. Because Phoenix is so close nearby (in jet terms) and pretty busy (it's a US Air hub, and Southwest has a strong presence there too), there is often a flow control program for aircraft going there: we have to call and get a "wheels up" time for each of our Phoenix departures to ensure that there's a hole in the line for them. This rarely delays them more than fifteen minutes (and there's an incentive for us to keep the delays at less than fifteen minutes: beyond that they become 'countable' delays).
A pair of Mesa (callsign: Air Shuttle) CRJ's. Above is a CRJ-900 at gate 10 next to a B737-300. Below, a CRJ-200 pulls into gate 6 with an A321 next door.

Sacramento, California, currently home of the "governator", is also about an hour away, but there's never any difficulty with traffic restrictions. Skywest flies the route for United, using CRJ's. Southwest also goes into Sacramento from LA. You'll see Skywest RJ's later on.

Denver, Colorado, gets great service from LAX: We have four airlines that go there on a regular basis. Frontier and United both operate hubs in Denver; I've seen just about every type United operates on this route. At the moment, Denver is the only direct destination for Frontier out of LA. American and Southwest also offer service into Denver. Flight time runs 1:45 to two hours.

Atlanta, Georgia, being the busiest airport in the country, not to mention the home of Delta, gets regular service from LA. Besides Delta, AirTran also flies from here to their hub in Atlanta. Flight times are four hours or a little less. Delta has run nearly everything on this route, but AirTran only uses their B737's; I don't think the B717's have enough range and payload to make it worthwhile. When AirTran first started flying into LAX all they had were the B717's, and they went from here to DFW. The non-stop to Atlanta came later, when they got their B737's. For a short time, until they got the 737's, AirTran contracted with Ryan Air to fly the route for them, using Airbus A320's. I wish I'd gotten a picture of one of those, since they've long since gone elsewhere and been repainted.

Honolulu, Hawaii, is served by the widest range of airlines from LA: Six different airlines fly this route, and each of them a couple of times a day. American, Continental, Delta, Hawaiian, Northwest, and United all currently use B757's and B767's. Not surprisingly, flight times are all about the same, at around five hours and fifteen minutes. I can remember when Hawaiian used DC10's and Amtran used Tristars, but no more.

After Honolulu, it's not nearly as exciting to talk about Boise, Idaho. It's not as exciting to go there either: From LAX, you've a choice of Horizon's Dash 8's or Skywest's CRJ-200's. Horizon flies for Alaska out of LAX, and their flight time for this route is right around two hours. The Skywest CRJ's fly for United, and they're about twenty minutes quicker.

Indianapolis, Indiana, gets passenger service from Northwest and cargo service from Fedex. Either way, the flight takes about three and a half hours. During the summer a couple of other airlines also went from here to Indy; maybe again next summer? We can only hope.

Boston, Massachusetts, my mother's home town, gets several flights a day via American and United. Flight times hover around five hours. Boeings predominate on this route, although I have seen United slip in an Airbus from time to time.

A pair of heavy Boeings: An American B767-200 and a United B767-300.

Although it's not easy to see, the -300 is longer; compare the distance from the nose wheel to the wing root.

St. Paul, Minnesota, gets regular service thanks to sharing the airport with its neighbor Minneapolis. Northwest has their big hub there, and I've seen them use short Airbuses, B747's, and everything in between. Sun Country also goes from here to MSP, using B737's. Flights run around three hours, give or take.

United offers service into Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport using Skywest CRJ-700's. Flight time is about two and a half hours. Come to think of it, I haven't noticed this flight go out within the last week or two, but I'm including it here anyway.

Nashville, Tennessee, is served by both American and Southwest. Both use B737's and have flight times around three and a half hours. Amazingly, I don't seem to have a picture of SWA and AAL B737's together; gotta work on that.

Austin, Texas, gets flights from American, Southwest, and United. American uses MD80's while Skywest operates CRJ-700's for United. Flights run about two and a half hours.

Salt Lake City, Utah, is a Delta hub, but also gets service from Southwest and United. Skywest flies the United flights using CRJ-200's and CRJ-700's. Oddly enough, Skywest also operates Delta Connection flights to SLC out of LAX. This creates the paradox of having two Skywest flights with different parent airlines' paint schemes going to the same place at about the same time. New ground controllers at LAX sometimes get surprised by the Skywest that doesn't park where all the other Skywests do. After a couple of times they figure it out (usually) because the flights operating for Delta, besides being painted in Delta colors, also have a different range of flight numbers (the Delta Skywests are usually in the 4000's, while the United Skywests are usually 5000's and 6000's. Usually). Another clue is that the Delta Skywest is often in a CRJ-900; Skywest doesn't operate -900's for United at LAX.

It figures - after all that blah about the Delta Skywests often being CRJ-900's, all I have is a picture of one that's in a -700. The -900 is longer, and can be identified by the two emergency exits over the wing; the -700 only has one; check the -900 in the first Phoenix photo above.

As I mentioned in the opening, this has become just as much a study of where you can't go from here: I counted eighteen states that receive no direct flights from LA at all. I'm not going to make a list of them here; I've been trying to avoid this whole topic becoming one great big list. A US map showing the affected states would've been nice, but the idea just occurred to me and it's already taken a week to put this together. For that same reason, most of the photos will have to go without captions - just imagine that each one has its own pithy remarks. For added interest, you can read this entry again tomorrow and imagine new pithy remarks!

Qantas A380 arrives

After years of anticipation, yesterday saw the arrival of the first Airbus A380 in regular scheduled service at LAX. Qantas flight 93 from Melbourne arrived a little before 7:30 in the morning. After unloading and servicing the aircraft, it was towed over to the Imperial Terminal on the south side of the field for some festivities. Also on hand for the show was John Travolta's B707, which is painted in the scheme of Qantas' first jetliner. As I had had the mid-shift that morning, I didn't stick around for all of the show-and-tell stuff. It was a gray and overcast morning, not ideal for pictures, but here are a few:

Gate 101 at the International Terminal is one of two at that terminal that have been reconfigured to accommodate the A380. Here, the tug is being hooked up for the final 100 feet or so to the gate. This is procedure is not limited to the big Airbus; most other heavies also get towed onto this gate, as they do for most other gates at LAX. There are, so far, four gates at LAX set up for the big Airbus: the two at the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT), and another two out at the west remote gates. The remote gates are gates in name only - they're really nothing more than hardstands with jetways that lead down to bus stops. Passengers get bussed to and from the TBIT. The long-term plan is to add more gates to the west side of the TBIT. There's also talk that Virgin Atlantic wants to bring their A380's to terminal two or three.

John Travolta's B707. As you can tell from the lighting, I actually took this shot the evening before, while the airplane was still on Atlantic Aviation's ramp. Later, it was towed over to the Imperial Terminal ramp for the inaugural festivities.

In this shot, the A380 is now in position at gate 101, and unloading has begun. For a sense of scale, look at the ground crew and vehicles. That's a B767 in the alley.

The International Terminal, with Terminal Four in the foreground. The A380 is on the corner (gate 101); the other Qantas jet at gate 104 is a B747, which arrived a few minutes before the Airbus. You can just see the top of the tail of another Qantas B747 parked at gate 41. That American tail sticking up next to it is the B767 in the previous photo. On the opposite side is an MD80 at gate 40, and a B757 at gate 42A.

Another comparison shot, actually taken while the A380 was still being pulled onto the gate, shows an MD80 waiting to leave the alley. That tail on the far left is a B767.

My day off

It's my one day off this week, and yet here I am at the tower. It's like one of those recurring bad dreams - even when I'm not at work, I'm at work. Except that it's intentional this time, and I really do have a purpose.

As I mentioned last month, LAX has been anticipating the commencement of service by Emirates Airlines, from the U.A.E. Scheduled service is to start next month, but yesterday they brought in an Airbus A380 on a promotional tour. This was the first A380 to appear at LAX in an airline paint scheme since the original first visit, which I believe was in Singapore colors. Come to think of it, this was the first A380 we've had here all year - the last visit was in November of last year, and that aircraft was in Airbus factory colors. Singapore was the launch customer for the A380, and they've been flying the first production aircraft for nearly a year now, I believe.

I wasn't in the tower yesterday when the Airbus arrived, as the information about it's arrival had not filtered up to the tower cab by the time I left on Monday. So, by the time I got to work, it was already on the ground and parked with its tail pointed right at the tower - not any airplane's best angle. Apparently the arrival was a spectacle, although not just because of the A380 itself. There were news crews and helicopters on site in preparation for the arrival, and they got the scoop of the day when an American 757 which had departed for Hawaii declared an emergency due to fumes and smoke in the cabin. The 757 landed on runway 7 left, which happens to be opposite direction - basically shutting down the entire airport. Even after the landing, the south side remained shut down to accommodate the evacuating passengers and emergency crews. The captain stopped the plane on the runway and ordered an emergency evacuation - with all the news cameras rolling. On live TV could be seen the chutes deploying and passengers then sliding down them to the ground and the awaiting rescue crews. Here are a couple of links for video clips of the evacuation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRQS5CsHJsE

http://www.blinkx.com/video/jet-evacuated-after-emergency-landing-at-lax/Wd_hXobRy_mBgt7_6pBveQ

While looking for those clips, I also found this one, which has both the American and then the A380's landing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrRt-gMDlEA

This morning's trip to the tower was to catch the A380's departure, which was managed without fanfare. Besides the sheer size of the thing, the other thing that is striking is how quiet it is - El Segundo has no basis for complaint about this airplane's noise. Even at takeoff power, it was amazing quiet - much less noise than the other jets that departed before and after. The sneaky thing about this promotional flight is that Emirates' regular scheduled service at LAX will be in B777's - not the A380. Our first scheduled service is to be later this year with Qantas, who ran full-page newspaper ads over a month ago. Anyway, on to the photo spread:

The tower view of the parked A380, with a Frontier A319 in the foreground

A Qantas B747-400 exits 25 Left

Fedex DC-10 departs

The A380 pushing back onto taxiway A as an American MD83 arrives.
You can see the museum's DC-3 in the background.

Another shot showing the DC-3. Now there's a size comparison!
Another indicator of the size of the Airbus: look at the police cars!
A Skywest CRJ-700 departs. That's Chevron's El Segundo refinery in the background.
It produces a lot of the jet fuel used at LAX - there's a pipeline
from the refinery to the airport fuel facility.
Here's a Skywest E-120 Brasilia on the new center taxiway.
Another Airbus 319 - this one in the new Spirit Wings scheme.An American B767 lifts off as the A380 taxis out

Yet another A319 - this one in Mexicana colors

Up, up, and . . .Away they go!

Seein' the Blues

In this, the third installment of my series looking at blue airline paint schemes, wraps up by looking at schemes that have more than just the tail in blue. But first, some unfinished business:

The newest US Air paint scheme has a dark blue tail - so dark that it doesn't always show in pictures. The slightly lighter stripes help, but still the light has to hit it just right. This shot shows a 757, although US Air mostly operates Airbuses. In the foreground, another view of the Sun Country scheme I like, on a 737-800.

Previously, I mentioned the amount of white space around the eskimo's head on the Alaska 737's; a much better example would have been the MD80 (MD-83) tail. Alaska is rapidly phasing out their MD80's - they're expected to all be gone by the end of the summer.

Of the mostly- or solid-blue schemes, the most commonly seen at LAX is Southwest. I've heard them call this 'periwinkle'; we usually just call it a 'blue top'. There are still a modest number of the original 'corndog' Southwest jets around too. It occurred to me after the fact that teal is a more up-to-date name for the color on the AirTran aircraft.

Earlier, I showed you a Korean passenger 747; here's one of their freighters.

While everyone else has a white-topped fuselage with color on the belly and tail,
KLM has just the opposite.

One more big blue heavy, this time an Air Tahiti A340-300.

A Midwest B717 pulling into gate 36. Midwest also operates MD88's- see below.

Two attempts to show you the Air Canada very pale eggshell blue paint scheme, both on Airbus 320's, although Air Canada also brings in 319's and 321's: the top shot also shows a Midwest MD88; you can where the "Midwest Express" has been painted out. In the lower shot, a Southwest corndog sits at the gate.

Another color negative is this Alaska 737. Here you can see that this eskimo head is outlined in teal. It is on the white planes too, but very hard to see except up close.

Another trio, this time of Alaska Disney specials:

And that's it - I've had enough of the blues for a while!