Chicago Midway Airport

Again it was a nice day with blue sky and therefore I decide to head from The Drake Hotel to the next Red Line Station "Chicago” per pedes instead of taking a taxi. It was sunny and I enjoyed the ten minutes walk along Michigan Avenue and Chicago Street. Again I changed at “Roosevelt” from the Red Line to the Orange Line to Midway Airport. Roosevelt was a little bit windy and so I had a last impression of the wind city (though I learnt during my stay, that windy was more a ‘political’ windy as Chicago was called ‘The Windy City’ by nobody other than some New Yorkers). The ride to Midway was short and convenient; you get some last views of the skyline of Chicago on your way to the airport.

Arriving at Midway I headed via parking garage to check-in. United’s counters were empty. After my nearly disaster with my checked luggage two days ago I decided to take both bags as carry on, which should not be such a problem, as all plains are small and bigger hand luggage therefore is collected by ground staff before you enter the plane and all flights did not seem to be fully booked. Though, I was a little bit surprised as the check-in agent of United asked me, if I would take both bags as hand luggage. Well, that was all I wanted to hear. All boarding passed for my next thee flights and I headed to the Gate Area.

Security was very fast. Although there were not many passengers, nearly every desk was used and so there were only a few people queuing and I passed security in less than five minutes. Belt and shoes had to be taken off, but nothing to write about the rest of this procedure.

Midway Airport does not look that bad, though there seems to be no lounges. I had some time before boarding started and therefore walked a little bit through the airport. It looks not that big, but also not bad as some people mentioned on flyertalk.com. I have not been at O’Hara, but I could imagine that Midway is faster in concern of security.

Boarding was scheduled for 13:29 and I take as seat and read a little bit in the January Issue of Condé Nast Traveller Magazine I bought at one of the newspapers kiosks with another small bottle of water.

Boarding was a little bit late and started at 13:35.

18 January 2006
MDW – IAD
[Chicago Midway - Washington Dulles]
UA 7285, Canadair CRJ 700
13:49 – 16:40 [13:45 – 16:40]
Economy Class
Seat 03 C

The seat map at Expertflyer showed the plane less than half full and I waited a little bit and boarded late. Hand luggage was collected while entering the plane and a flight attendant greeted me entering the plane. I seated again at 3 C and this time 3 A remained empty so I changed after the door was closed to 3 A.

First Class remained empty this time. The plane was dirty, it was not cleaned at Midway and a newspaper was visible in one of the pockets at the wall before 3 D. First Class Seats did not to be in a good condition, the seats look worn. The armrest of my seat was somehow broken, it was loose.

Despite late start of boarding we pushed back a few minutes early at 13:45.

Safety demonstration was done manually by the flight attendants very fast by one of the flight attendants while the other was at the microphone; this time the flight attendant speak very clear and you could understand her.

We take off at 13:55 in East direction and so I got a nice view of Chicago and Lake Michigan. It was a nice weather for the flight, blue sky with no cloud. Therefore I enjoyed the time sitting at the window and looking down.

Service was done again without the use of a trolley by the two flight attendants. I opted for a coffee and a glass of water and get it after just a few seconds with some pretzels. The two flight attendants were very friendly, I would say the friendliest crew I had on all the flights during this holiday. They had always a smile, very friendly and relaxed. A reason might be the low load with only 15 passengers. After service the flight attendants sat down in First and it seems they do some paperwork and also chatted to each other.

Real Flight time was again only 80 minutes. We began our landing approach to IAD round about 60 minutes after take off in Chicago. There was a lot of air traffic above IAD as I counted many planes below and above us and as we made a 180 ° turn could see the planes approaching IAD before and behind us. We touched down early at 16:13, but our luck does not last, as the captain came over the micro telling us, we were not expected at this early time and so our gate was not ready and we had to wait. We not only had to wait but also to roll around the terminal to get the rollway free for other planes. So I get nice views of several planes of Austrian, Lufthansa, British Airways, Alitalia and Air France.

This time we had a Gate at the main terminal D and not this lousy G gates. I was one of the first passengers but had to wait with several other passengers for my hand luggage which has to be unloaded. There was a jet bridge, but we had to use the stairs down to the tarmac and up to the gateway.

TOP

next flight