During the night and in the morning it snowed in New York. I checked the internet and the flight tracking system showed for the morning departures a departure nearly on time for US Airways flights, but incoming flights were delayed or even cancelled and therefore I decided to get to the airport earlier. I also was not convinced that US Airways had not cancelled the itinerary since I was rebooked on the flight to New York as they had done on some other occasions.
I took the subway from 57th street to Astoria where I changed into the M 60. Both times, I was lucky as the subway and the bus were quite empty and showed up at the station / bus stop just in the moment I arrived. So I made it to the airport in less than 40 minutes around 11:20.

New York La Guardia

The US Airways check in counter for international connections were busy checking passengers in but after a few minutes it was my turn. The agent asked if I would like to get on the 11:59 flight to Philadelphia, which was much earlier than I had expected. So I got all three boarding passes for the next three flights – and found SSSS printed on the boarding pass.

The agent at the security checkpoint told me I was not allowed to use the Fast Lane, only First Class and Preferred Members could use them, but I was “only Star Gold”. So I queued in line, which moved luckily fast. In term of safety lines, I am again impressed about the handling in LGA. It might be an advantage, that they have mostly domestic flights with a few flights to Canada as far as I know. I got a manually search and my hand luggage was checked for explosive material, no manual searching of the trolley this time. So it took just five minutes and I was on my way to the gate. I skipped the US Club, as I already was behind boarding time.

As I approached the gate I noticed a familiar face – alex0683de was sitting there. I had checked BAconnect but not noticed his flights. Shame on me. Seconds later the boarding process started and we were on the way to the plane. There was still snow on the tarmac and on the plane. Once onboard we were luckily able to change seats and could seat together.

18 January 2009
LGA - PHL
[New York LaGuardia – Philadelphia]
US 3845 (US Airways); Canadair CRJ-200 (N416AW)
Gate C 1
11:59– 13:11 [effective 11:54 – 13:44]
Economy Class
Seat 05 D

The only flight attendant did the safety demonstration while we were standing at the gate.

We pushed back right in time but the captain informed us, that we had to be de-iced which would took some time. So we queued in line for de-icing. The waiting time was nearly 35 minutes and then we had to wait another 30 minutes for take off.

The flight was not completely full a few seats remained empty. So the flight attendant decided to take one of the passenger seats during this time instead of her seat.

We took off at 13:05 in western direction and then made the sharp right turn and had some nice views of the Financial District in New York and Staten Island, however the view was not that good. The captain had told us that the flight time to Philadelphia would be approximately 35 minutes. Alex and me chatted about New York, fares, flyertalk and some other things during flight time.

We landed in Philadelphia at 13:35 and taxied for our gate F 32 where we arrived at 13:44.

Since we had some time we decided to deboard late as the trolleys had to be brought to the jet bridge. As we left the plane among the last passengers they were not yet brought. While waiting there we were addressed by a young girl in German asking what we were waiting for. We told her and since she had no hand luggage she decided not to wait longer. Alex had asked her about her next flight, as there are not that many flights to Germany and she was on the same flight to Frankfurt Alex also had booked.

As our trolleys were brought we headed to the terminal.

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