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You are here: Articles > Flight stories > Flight to L.A. #2
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Article overview A family of 4 just landed in Cincinnati. Their flight to Los Angeles is delayed due to an equipment change. Instead of flying on the B767 as scheduled, they fly on the L-1011. Originally published in July 1998. Re-edited in January 2005. |
 he odyssey to Los Angeles continues. In transit at the Cincinnati International Airport (CVG), we have just arrived. It's March 1st, 1996, and it's 11:50 AM, Eastern Time. We just deplaned Comair flight OH3731 from Montreal to Cincinnati on a Canadair Regional Jet. A larger aircraft would be waiting for us.
 Waiting, waiting...In this magnificent airport, the wait seemed rather long. First, we had to switch terminals. We arrived at terminal C and now we had to move to terminal B where Delta Airlines flight DL1019, non-stop from Cincinnati to Los Angeles on a B767, would be leaving from, like many other Delta mainline flights. The ground shuttle is a roomy bus that dodged buildings, aircraft parked at the gates and on remote stands, arriving at another spot in Terminal B. 
Once there, my mother obtained our boarding passes for flight 1019, which would be supposedly boarding momentarily. I took a look at them. Seat 30J... Wait a minute! A B767 has SEVEN seats per row... and J is the NINTH seat of the row, the one next to the right window. Unless the airline adopted an arbitrary seat assignment system, this indicated that we had changed equipment. We would obviously be flying on one of the widest planes in the fleet, either the L-1011 or the MD-11. I doubted it would be the MD-11, because it was mostly used on intercontinental flights back then.
RoomyAt last, flight 1019 was ready for boarding. Once inside, there was no more doubts: this is a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar. When they were first introduced, the airline called them Wide-Ride. And indeed, the cabin looked incredibly roomy, like a "flying living room", to freely quote their commercials back then. We all got to our seats. My mom started taking our coats and strategically distributing our hand luggage in a few overhead storage compartments near our seats. This is a crowded plane: I watch as she checks bins one after the other. I'm in a window seat, right next to my father. Wow. Isn't this seat in economy class comfortable? Really. I didn't know a seat in economy could be this comfortable. I was impressed... I looked around and had fun looking at the passengers, a little like Linda Blair playing the ill teenager in Airport 1975: "It's so exciting! The people are so interesting!"... Indeed! I looked and in the rows in front of us many elderly men and women were on the plane and seemed to travel together. This did seem to be a very full flight! Good ol' impatience!12:40 PM. I started to get impatient. I started to understand. At this time, most of the passengers that boarded at the first call were already in their seats. But suddenly, a large group of passengers boarded the aircraft, and they didn't seem to be travelling together. My dad said: "They must be coming from a delayed connecting flight and the airline didn't want to lose such a bunch of passengers from the same flight". Maybe he was right. 1:00 PM. At last, the first signs of life from the cabin crew, over the P.A. The Senior Flight Attendant explained that the delay was in part due to the equipment change. I was right! The flight was supposed to be on a Boeing 767. My dad looked at me and pointed at the starboard wing. We are sitting right next to it. He points at engine number 3 and asked: "What's that? You think it's normal?" as he noticed some surfaces of the engine that looked at first as if they were corroded, more brown than gray as all the others. I try to reassure him, saying that this airplanes go through a series of tough verifications before and after each flight. Maybe it's not what it seemed.  A couple of flight attendants unfolded the video screen at the front of our cabin and the safety demonstration started. The plane started rolling slowly towards our runway. Just as we are holding short, about to taxi into the runway, I take a look and I notice right away that the runway seemed to cimb, almost like a rollercoaster, but not by much. I guess the terrain simply rises flightly at the beginning of the runway. About a minute later, we are already airborne.
Coffee, tea, milk...?After the L-1011 reached its cruising altitude, I started reading the in-flight magazine, Sky... Damn! The section about the Internet was been torn off this edition. It was 1996 and I wish I would have started finding out about the wonders of this thing, known by some people back then as "The Information Highway." I was amazed: the magazine changed a lot and got a fresh new look since last time I have flown Delta, back in 1995 from a trip to Peru. After a while, the inflight entertainment program started and the movie The American President starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening was shown. My dad let me sit in the aisle seat so that I could watch the movie. Don't forget that I was not too tall at that time! I watched the beginning but not the ending. About half an hour into the movie, the flight attendants are starting to serve drinks and meals. A young flight attendant approaches my row. I have a feeling she might be on one of her first flights. I don't know if her gracious and proud attitude was a result of a training by Delta or simply the way she behaves normally. She asks me "What will you have as a drink, Sir?". I reply "What do you have?" What follows is quite a twist, as she answers my dumb question... Looking at me straight in the eye with a slightly sarcastic smile, she starts:
- Uh... I think I'll have a Sprite... I don't think she mentioned the whole drink list in that order. I simply relied on what was displayed in the Sky magazine! Burnt green beansThe next part was a slight dissapointment. I already smelled a slightly burnt scent in the air. The same Flight Attendant comes with my tray of food. I noticed and told ot myself: "Hmm... looks good. Lemon chicken with noodles and... BURNT GREEN BEANS??!!"... "Sorry for the green beans.", she says... I reply "It's okay". I considered myself lucky, since my dad's food seemed a bit more dark! I guess they had a problem with their oven. Well, I am almost done eating my chicken (which was not too bad), leaving the green beans and eating the bread and the cookie, simply leaving my tray as empty as possible... when another Flight Attendant arrived at my row, graciously smiling and showing me a new main course tray with the chicken, the noodles, and the green beans cooked to perfection! Wow! "Thank you very much!"... I started eating... again! I must have been very hungry. My dad seemed a little jealous, so I let him have part of my chicken, and all the noodles. He said: "Well, I guess she felt sorry for you and she thought that kids should eat better food." The cabin started getting a little shaky as we crossed a zone of turbulence. The Seat Belt sign was still off. A middle-aged flight attendant tels the same Junior flight attendant who served my drink earlier on, to relax and to hold on to an armrest. Landscape
Ding-dong. The Captain announced we were overflying the Grand Canyon and that he would try to make up for the delay and try to land in L.A. on time. My first reaction: Wow... They not only feel sorry for the delay, but to buy forgiveness, they fly above the Grand Canyon and they try to make up for the half-hour delay!
The landscape was very beautiful. My dad filmed it for a few moments, until the windows show nothing but mountains, mountains, and more mountains! The time is now 1:15 PM, Pacific Time, but in my head, it's still 4:15 (Eastern Time). I would suffer for the first time the effects of jet lag! I already crossed a time zone once before, when connecting flights in Chicago: one short hour difference. This time, it would be a three-hour difference. "California, here we come!"The plane started making a rather slow descent, I guessed it was because of the mountains... When I made virtual flights from East to West, I always flew almost at cruising altitude and made a quick descent (not to say a dive) to Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego or Seattle, because of the Rocky Mountains on the way... We were still flying ABOVE the mountains, but soon we would fly almost NEAR them... The Rockies looked great today... The screen was now displaying a computerized image of a map of California and the position of our plane, and the estimated time of arrival, 2:10 PM. As the plane started descending faster and faster, I saw Los Angeles for the first time. The skyscrapers looked as if they emerged from nowhere, in the middle of an urban area, almost like a hill, with the surroundings looking almost flat. We touch down smoothly, just as a Varig Boeing 747 is holding short. 
LAX, here we are! The first sight was the magnificent, nice-looking, futuristic restaurant building, THE landmark of LAX... and Los Angeles period, some might say! We taxied, not near the big mainline Delta airliners but... near a couple of small SkyWest Airlines Embraer EMB120 Brasilia. SkyWest is the regional subsidiary of Delta for the Western Coast.
As we deplaned, the main screen in the cabin showed the "Spirit of Atlanta" Boeing 767. Yes! I remembered suddenly: the Atlanta Olympic Games are to start later that year, and Atlanta's hometown airline is of course a proud sponsor! At the gate, my mom's friend, Maria, welcomed us. My mom had not seen this old High School friend for years! She was very happy! And so were we... Until my feet started hurting like crazy for the two-and-a-half hour trip from the airport, to Simi Valley, in the suburbs. I realized I had forgotten my orthopedic soles in Montréal! Editor's Note: Sadly, Delta Air Lines retired the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar from its fleet on July 31st, 2001. | ||||||
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This is part of a series of 5 articles on a trip from Montreal to Los Angeles and back. Click on the numbers below for easy navigation.
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All L-1011 pictures: by Sergio Ortega, captured and modified from Microsoft Flight Simulator 98.
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