Dallas / Fort Worth International

After I re-checked my luggage I cleared security again and took the Skylink train to Terminal E. The Skylink trains offered good views over the tarmac and the terminals. The airport Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) is located between the cities of Dallas and Forth Worth and is the fourth busiest airport in terms of aircraft movements and number eight if it comes to passenger traffic with over 56 million passengers in 2010. DFW has seven runways, four with a length of 4085 meters and three shorter ones with length of 2835 meters, 2743 meters and 2591 meters.  The airport has currently five terminals which are connected by the above mentioned Skylink train. The Skylink trains serve all five terminals bi-directional and are located inside the secure area.

I spent the next hours in the United Club in Terminal E of DFW. The club is not really big and was quite full as I entered it around 15:15 but the number of people slowly decreased and in the end it was only a handful of people waiting to the last flights out of DFW.

The club, a former Continental Presidents Club, is an average club with a bar, the usual selection of cookies, assorted nuts, packed cheese and tea and coffee dispensers. WiFi was free in the lounge. Unfortunately I forgot to take my US adapter out of my checked luggage and so was running slowly out of power, which meant I was able to listen to my MP3 player and reading in magazine instead of checking e-mail and updating the trip report as well as to perform my duties as a Flyertalk moderator.

The flight was scheduled to arrive at 19:51 but at this time there was no plane at the gate. The club was about to close at 20:00 and since I wanted to stretch my legs decided to walk through the terminal. The few shops and food outlets in the terminal were slowly closing down and some shops had already closed. My flight to ORD was one of the last from this part of the terminal. The AA gates were unsurprisingly much busier given the fact that DFW is an American Airlines hub.
The plane arrived at 20:10 and boarding was announced to start in a couple of minutes with elites first, families traveling with children and members of the armed forces in uniform.

30 May 2012
DFW – ORD
[Dallas Fort Worth – Chicago O’Hare]
UA 5566 (Skywest dba United Express); CRJ 700(N513SK)
Gate E 6
20:30 – 22:44 [effective 20:41 – 22:52]
Business Class
Seat 2 A

Soon the boarding announcement was made and I was on my way to the Canadair Regional Jet CRJ 700. The flight attendant greeted me while boarding and the plane and I went to my seat in row 2. I stored my carry on under the seat in front of me and my small bag as well as my jacket in the overhead bin. She offered to hang the jacket of those passengers in Business Class wearing a more formal outfit than me. There were only four hangers available, so I placed my jacket in the overhead bin. Just a detail, but if you have a formal outfit, which is not uncommon on a business trip, you want to prefer it being on a hanger in the closet rather than lying in the overhead bin. She later asked for our choice of pre-departure beverage which was either orange juice or water. No alcoholic drinks were on offer.

The plane filled with passengers but was not fully booked. I heard in the lounge, that quite a few passengers took the delayed earlier flight instead of this one.

We pushed back at 20:41 and taxied for the runway. The safety demonstration was performed by the flight attendants while we pushed back. They were not the friendliest ones and they looked tired and I bet they were happy to have their last flight for today. We hat to taxi for quite some time before we finally accelerated at 20:56 and climbed into the dark sky over the Dallas Fort Worth metro area.

Let me give some information about this regional jet. The CRJ700 series planes of Canadian Bombardier Company is a stretched derivate of the smaller CRJ200. Bombardier launched the work for this plane in 1997 with design work already begun earlier in 1995. The first flight of a CRJ700 took place on May 27, 1999 and the first plane entered commercial service with Brit Air in 2001. Instead of CRJ700 sometimes the FAA Type Certificate designation is used which is CL-600-2C10. The main competitor of the CRJ700 is the Embraer 170. Only one engine type is available for this plane, the General Electric CF34-8C1.

On October 29, 2044 our CRJ-700 was delivered to Skywest, who operated this flight on behalf of United Express.
The plane had six seats in Business / First Class in the front offering a seat pitch of 37 inch and a seat width of 19 inch. Behind the curtain or in this case wall were 28 seats in Economy Plus with a seat pitch of 34 inch and 32 seats in Economy offering a seat pitch of 31 inch; seat width is 17 inch.

Once airborne the flight attendant serving Business Class took our orders for our choice of beverage and I opted for Tonic water. Beer and alcoholic beverage was available as well. Snack boxes were distributed but I skipped them. Most of the passengers in Business Class took one but the choice of chips, cookies and grissini were not very tempting for me. We were cruising in 9000 feet through rainy weather and the flight was occasionally a bit bumpy and the seat belt signs were turned on. After 1:30 hours we already had begun our final descend into ORD the crew prepared the cabin for our arrival. We touched down on runway 2 at 22:44 and taxied for our gate in terminal 2 of ORD. Disembarking took some time as the jetbridge had a malfunction, but maintenance staff was able to fix it and five minutes later the jetbridge was docked to the plane and we could disembark.

Arriving in terminal 2 meant one has to backtrack to terminal 1 to pick up the luggage with was a pit as the shuttle bus stop is at the Hilton Hotel which is closer to terminal 2 than to terminal 1 but such is life.

After a short wait the shuttle to the Four Points arrived and I was after a quick stop at terminal 5 on my way to my hotel.

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