Washington Dulles Airport

While I waited for my hand luggage to be delivered, I thought if I should head to the belt and hope my checked luggage had made it or head to my next flight to catch it. As the hand luggage was unloaded I asked Uniteds ramp agent if he could figure out, if my bag was in the plane. Suddenly I saw it, as it had a bright red Samsonite luggage tag. I pointed the problem of my tight connection out to him and he told me, they will recheck it for my next flight manually, which departs also at G. He would inform me in the waiting area and made an announcement if everything was okay.
Well, I was somehow happy that my luggage had made it. It is not, that everything important was in it, it is just I hate, if things happen on a flight and you could do nothing. I travel with hand luggage only the most time, but due to some things I should bring for friends, I was in the need of an additional bag.
Terminal G was a zoo, several flights were delayed and a lot of people stand and sit there. I can imagine it is hard to wait here for more than a few minutes if it as crowded as it was on this time. And I learnt, this is just a normal day …
Some minutes later I was called to the counter and had to sign a paper for the manual checked baggage which had now a “checked priority bag” tag on it. Just seconds later our next flight to Midway was called and as I was standing right at the gate counter at G 17 the first person to pass the door to the Gates. Terminal G looks a little bit like a bus stop, only instead of buses there are planes.

16 January 2006
IAD – MDW
[Washington Dulles – Chicago Midway]
UA 7285, Canadair CRJ 700
12:00 – 13:14 [11:55 – 12:35]
Economy Class
Seat 03 C

Hand luggage was collected at the doors of the aircraft.
This Canadair Jet had a two class configuration, two seats in First were occupied by other passengers, load in Economy was less than 40 %. I was greeted by one of the two female flight attendants as I entered the plane. I had the first row of Economy, the 3 A was taken by another passenger, but there were several seat empty in the back and so I changed to 8 D/F. The rows before and behind were also empty, so I could relax and lower the back of my seat without disturbing any other passenger.
The safety announcement was done by the flight attendants manually, no tape. The plane looked a little bit dirty, but a cleaning crew has beein in it. Some stains and somehow a little bit rundown.
We pushed back early at 11:55 and were airborne fiveminutes later at noon.

The plane was cold inside, as we boarded and it became a little bit warmer after 20 minutes flight time, but remained colder than usual. The flight attendants came to every passengers and asked if the liked something to drink, there was not trolley service. Beverage service consisted of a choice of soft drinks and coffee. I opted for a coffee and a cup of water, which were brought with some pretzels; a little bit later the flight attendant asked if I liked another round of pretzel, and so I got two additional small bags of pretzel.

The flight attendants remained in the back of the plane chatting and seating in the passengers seat until they collected glasses and cups after some time. For the rest of the flight they sat in the back and chatted.

The flight was a little bit bumpy, seat belt signs were switched on. There were clouds, so you could not see the ground. After an hour sky cleared and you got a good impression of the landscape and could also see the Chicago skyline as we approached Chicago Midway. The airport is right in the middle of a residential area with some small company buildings. At least this was my impression as we landed. We touched down nearly 40 minutes ahead of schedule on 12:30 local time and reached our gate five minutes later.

The hand luggage was brought to the jet bridge two minutes after I deboarded the plane, which took nearly no time as they plane had only a low load. And up I was on my way to the luggage belt, where my checked bag just appeared as I reached the belt, nice timing.

I headed for the CTA Train, passing the parking garage.

The Orange Line CTA Train was waiting in the station but had some technical problems, so we had to change trains and our new train departs just a few seconds after everybody had entered. Now it was 12:45 and this was really a fast way out of the plane and in the train on my way to Downtown Chicago. I changed trains at “Roosevelt” and continued my ride with the Red Line CTA train to Chicago, the stop next to my hotel for the next night, the Courtyard Chicago Downtown in East Hubbard Street, which is just two blocks from the subway stop.

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