Flyin' Brian

Why Your Airport Sucks: Cincinnati Edition

This week’s trip marks my final trip out of Minneapolis and hopefully an end to the commuting issues and cold weather-related problems associated with it. I was lucky to not be strapped to the front of a 757 like last week’s commute. This time I got a seat in the back and was able to…
Ithaca is Gorges! (if you can see it)

Today I enjoyed one of my more scenic flights on my way over to Ithaca, New York. The airline that has “west” in its name headed about as far east as I’ve been since flying. We saw the finger lakes on the way in and I thought I could make out the city of Toronto…
Quad City Confusion

Today we landed in Moline. Where is that you ask? I had to look it up myself. I thought it was in Iowa, but I was wrong. Moline is in Illinois, but I was partially correct since our hotel was in fact in Iowa…a mere 15 minute drive away. It’s part of the Quad Cities…
Why Your Airport is Marginal at Best: Detroit Edition

This week, Detroit has become my de facto base. I didn’t even begin my trip in my real base of MSP. I bypassed the land up north entirely by catching a flight directly from LAX to Detroit instead of routing myself through Minneapolis. The downside to this was giving up a company-confirmed seat in the…
A Most Difficult Day

A few weeks ago, a captain had asked me what my worst day on the job was like. I had to think about it for a while, and nothing has been terrible. Sometimes there are delays, sometimes there are weather issues, sometimes mechanical anomalies, sometimes there is pressure to make up time, but rarely do…
Iron Mountain

Every once in a while, I’ll be overnight in a place and find that there is absolutely nothing to do. Iron Mountain is one such place. When I woke up this morning, I looked out the window to take in my options. There was a Home Depot, a Wal*Mart, and a Dollar Tree. In lieu…
Putting a Fork in Grand Forks

I took a look at my schedule and it would appear that this is the last time I will ever be in Grand Forks, North Dakota. It’s just as well because I can’t work out why anyone would want to live there. This was my second trip to the land up north and my second…
A-Town Down

After a quick turn in Lansing, Michigan where I was assaulted by 25 mph winds with blowing snow, we embarked on a flight from Minneapolis to Appleton. Despite it being technically colder the day before, the winds had been calm. Now each second outside was unbearable with the wind chilling me to the bone. We…
The Beginning of the End of Chapter One

This week did not start off well. I was set to depart on a 6:40am flight out of Los Angeles to be in Minneapolis by 1:00. Problem is — the plane that allegedly had 14 seats available was a bit of a ghost ship. The flight was supposed to be a 757, and paying passengers…
Unplanned New Years Visit to Minnetonka

Our flight was the only airplane going from Wichita to Minneapolis on New Years Day, and Nicole was lucky to grab a seat in the back. The same could not be said for flights going out of Minneapolis, but I’ll get into that later…The flight back to the far north was uneventful other than a…