| Home | Flights | Hotels | Diary |
Palm Springs International
I left the Hyatt Regency Palm Springs around 07:20 and drove the short way to the airport. The airport is close to city and easy to reach by car. I dropped my rental car at, picked my belongings and walked over to the terminal. The United Counters were busy and close to 20 people were queuing there but the line with Priority Access was empty and there was no waiting time. The self check in kiosk was used by another passenger, so I used the regular counter.
My boarding passes for the flights to Los Angeles and on to Chicago were issued and soon later I was on my way to the security checkpoint. There was no one in front of me and the two security checkpoints were also not very busy and it took me less than ten minutes from entering the terminal until I had successfully passed the security checkpoint. I had hoped for short lines, but given that it was July 4th I played safe and planed 45 minutes to pass security. Now I had a lot of time to spend and no airline has any lounge in Palm Springs. It is a very relaxing airport with terminals connected by walking paths underneath palms and a lot of open space not covered by a roof at all. With 360 sunny days in an average year this is not a problem. A quick visit by the Starbucks and I went over to the terminal and made use of the free WiFi in the terminal until my flight was called for boarding much later that the scheduled boarding time.
04 July 2013
PSP – LAX
[Palm Springs International – Los Angeles International]
UA 241 (United Airlines); Embraer 120 (N580SW)
Gate 19
09:00 – 09:51 [effective 08:59 – 09:47]
Economy Class
Seat 12 C
Priority boarding was available for passengers traveling with infants, people with disabilities soon followed by passengers holding elite status. Larger items of hand luggage were collected on the tarmac for delivering at the aircraft right after we touched down in LAX. There was a ramp to our Embraer Brasilia 120 plane to make it easier for passengers to board the plane without the need to climb narrow stairs. Boarding was a little bit chaotic due to the fact that one passenger with a wheelchair was late and another passenger had a lot of hand luggage which could not be stored in the cargo compartment or in the overhead bin and also does not fit under the seats. So it had to be placed on a seat and this means a non-revenue passenger had to get off the plane. I think this would not happen elsewhere.
This is the second time for me on this plane – I had flown N580SW round about a year ago in the other direction from LAX to PSP. And given the route map of this plane, it is mostly flying between LAX and PSP.
There was not need to be pushed back, since the plane was parked in a way that it could just roll to the runway. We departed at 08:59 in southern direction before we made a U turn and flew over Palm Springs. Nice views towards Palm Springs would have been possible, but the window was scratched and it was not possible to take pictures. I was also sitting over the wing limiting my view a little bit.
One of the disadvantages of this smaller Embraer Plane is that one can smell the engines and the pollution of the engines in the plane. It is okay for such a short flight, but I would not be as happy as it would be a longer flight. As we reached the Desert Premium Outlets we turned to the West and passed the mountains before we began our final approach into LAX International Airport. The flight attendant offered water during the flight, no other beverages were available.
We touched down on runway 25 R at 09:41 and taxied to gate 81A at terminal 8 where we arrived at 09:47. We had to wait until the propellers of the plane came to a complete stop. In the meantime the ground agents had unloaded those pieces of hand luggage collected in Palm Springs.