Thx LSmith. Appreciate your comments.
Do you recall the type of aircraft ? (I think the flights to Myrtle Beach are on leased Airbuses?).
The flights to Orlando are on leased Advantage Airlines MD-88 (McDonnell Douglas) which were bought from Midwest Airlines and I understand this route starts next week.
I've been on a couple of MD-88 (2-3 row configuration)in the past. I wonder if any Dissers have used the Dynamic Airlines ones ?
The first plane that Direct Air put us on - well let's just say I have never flown in anything that looked like this. OLD being the key word. I don't know my airplanes unless it's a 737 or 747 type, unfortunately.
The seats were brown leather/pleather and were in very bad shape. Many of the arm rests were literally hanging off the sides of the seats into the aisle. I believe this aircraft had 3 seats on one side and two on the other. Everyone was voicing their shock over the condition of this plane.
Luckily for us we didn't have to fly in it because the pilot announced that the tail was broken. First he said that they were getting someone to fix it but then, thankfully, he came back to tell us that we were getting another plane. We had already been sitting on the plane for about an hour. So we left the plane and waited for another one. This process took about another two hours.
The next plane was more your typical airbus that you would see on AirTran or Southwest. Comparatively, it looked brand new although it certainly wasn't.
The flight went going very smoothly until we were close to landing and the pilot came over to tell us that due to the weather we might not be able to land and we might have to land at Buffalo airport.
*This was an exact repeat of the day before trying to land at Niagara Airport with Spirit. The only difference was that after circling the airport for more than an hour, the pilot was directed back to Myrtle Beach on the Spirit flight and everyone was SOL getting a flight back until 4 days later. Hence, us booking a Direct Air flight the next morning so we could get home. Most of the people on the plane were on the Spirit plane with us the day before.
Anyway, the Direct Air pilot finally announced that he was now "going to
try to land the plane" at Niagara.
He did actually land the plane but went off the runway at the end a bit and onto gravel. No damage to us except being scared out of our wits. At least I was.
I have flown literally hundreds of times and have never experienced anything like this.
I am wondering if the runway is not long enough. What I don't understand is it was barely drizzling both days and the pilot was talking about a tail wind of 10 mph which I assume is normally not a big deal. There were no weather delays at Buffalo either day.
