Just Back: EA, & ATA

[mkymouse4ever]

Quick review for those interested.

ATA: Chicago midway to orlando! Our flight on 7/24 @ 7am, WOW what a ride. Absolutely the first thrill ride of the trip! "our plane is still in hanger there is a delay...... Finally we are ready to board 45 minutes late, usual 1/2 hr to 45min boarding and taxing... then on runway, rive the engines and start blaring down midways (very short runways) and STOP! right before take off. You could of heard a pin drop! Finally captin, "seems we have an indicator light on about the engine?" wait a while.. "we are going back to the gate for engineers to check.. Then get off main runway, taxing, and park "we have to wait for gate to open up 1/2 hr later taxing... and pull to gate, "we are not getting off so we don't have to board again while they work on it. then 45min later "update" seems we are getting off.. Visiting midway airport.... Finally 11:30am "we have a plane" "its coming" Jumping ahead (2hr flight).... We arrive orlando 3pm! (4 EST) But better safe than sorry!

EA: 7/24 3pm: Several boxy intermidiate and full sizes to pick from, PLUS: 2 pt cruisers & 1 jeep (small), 1 mitubitishi eclipse. No SUV, or VANS. Took the dark grey eclipse had 4000 miles, VERY POOR airconditioning and and slow pick up. we always bring too much luggage so it was tight but we did ok.

EA: 8/1 3pm: We went back (cause of coupon restrictions, decided to split the 3 weeks) and switched cars. This time available only large car's buicks, and intrepid's.. then 1 alero, and 1 grand am, 1 pt cruiser. We snuck over to the full size aisle and took a camary! very nice you could put a family of 6 in the trunk! it was light blue, great airconditioning, good pick up, and 6000 miles on it.

EA: 8/11 4pm: Returning camary check on aisle and nothing interesting only Daewood smaller cars, 1 grand prix, large buicks and crsyler's.

MKY

 

[LvsTnk]

Thanks for the report! How was the return flight on ATA? Laurie

 

[mkymouse4ever]

Returning was not bad out of orlando at all. BUT the midway ata luggage handling takes forever! We landed at 7:35pm taxi around and waited again for gate 15min de-planed and got my luggage at 8:55pm! We were almost the last ones there. ATA had 3 different planes on 1 carosel and they were all mixed togther it was packed.
MKY

 

[inkkognito]

Wow!!! I would have been scared to death on that ATA flight heading to MCO!! Midway's runways always scare me anyway. We fly ATA a lot and have been very fortunate, other than a cargo door that refused to close for almost an hour last time and an aborted landing on a snowy day due to a small plane that had skidded out on the runway in front of us...as a matter of fact, we were circling your hometown while waiting for another runway to be cleared!
I agree about the looooong time it takes to get luggage. A couple of times ATA has been fast, but most of the time you could grow old waiting. Oh well, it's worth it for those nice, cheap fares. I hope you were on their nice new 757s...I love the stretch model.
Barb
Visit the Platinum Castaway Club at: www.castawayclub.com

 

[LvsTnk]

Thanks for the reply! One more ? If you flew one of the new planes did they have the movie or entertainment film running? Last 2 trips we saw nothing but the trip before we actually saw a movie.

** One trip with ATA we had all of our luggage except one piece that was sitting right at the top ready to fall down when everything stopped!! We waited another 30min. for them to get it going because they would not let us have that small case! Laurie

 

[mkymouse4ever]

We were suppose to have the new plane going, that was the one with the engine problem. then we got the older one as the replacement, coming back it was the older one. But they did do the "entertainment" we saw a similar clip both ways. motorcross racing, some kind of water polo game (british) then a friends episode and a tom & jerry cartoon. They did give everyone on the first plane FREE ear plugs because of the large delay ($1.00). MKY

 

[LvsTnk]

Thanks!

 

[nluvwithdisney]

mkymouse4ever,

Did you fly back to Chicago on 8/11? It sounds like we might have been on the same flight. Just curious.

 

[mkymouse4ever]

Yes we did! 8-11 ! What time did you get your luggage?MKY

 

[nluvwithdisney]

It had to have been about 8:30 0r 8:45. I know it took a long time for it to come out. Our limo driver actually came and found me waiting at the carousel.