Made a weekend trip down to Disneyland, flying from Monterey to Los Angeles. Friday, February 6, 2004 United Express operated by SkyWest Airlines flight 6091 MRY-LAX Scheduled: 1338-1455 Actual: 1347-1449 Embraer EMB-120ER N562SW seat 8A Drove to the airport, and after a couple of minutes found a spot in the long term parking lot. Walked to the terminal and checked in. Since I was just going down for a couple of days, I had everything in my backpack. I didn't even bring my camera with me since I knew I wouldn't have the opportunity to use it and I'd just be dragging it around. Check-in was pretty quick, there were just a couple of people ahead of me. When I checked in, the agent saw I was just going to LAX and asked if I was coming back the same day. After a trip to the restroom I went through security with no problems. Sat down at gate 7 and waited for the flight. As last week was the week of the AT&T Pebble Beach golf tournament, there were several business jets coming and going. Eventually the aircraft arrived and when they were ready boarding started. This was not my first time on the Brasilia, and I have to admit I like them. The overhead bin is big enough to fit my backpack. I didn't have the famous 9BC exit row seats, but I found especially without my backpack under the seat in front of me, I had plenty of legroom at 8A. It was difficult to tell, but it seemed like I might have had more room than 8BC across the aisle. Better than in November when I was sitting closer to the propellers. 8A is just behind the wing, so the view is blocked a little bit. This flight was completely full, I didn't see an empty seat on the aircraft. While waiting to depart I noticed Champion Air 727-2S7 N562SW at an FBO ramp, and it had its lights on. We powered up engines and pulled away from the gate at 1341. I saw that we were following the 727 to runway 28L. After it took off we moved into position and started our own takeoff roll, as we did that I noticed we were being followed by two more business jets, Canadair Challenger 600-2B16 N289K and Dassault Falcon 900 N233KC. We were off the ground at 1347. The flight attendant took drink orders, and then prepared and served them. She offered the full can to all passengers, including my order of Sprite. When she was done she came through offering packages of mint chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. They're not bad. The flight was just about an hour, and I spent some time looking through SkyWest Magazine, and just staring out the window. The flight was smooth, aside from the normal turboprop vibration. The captain turned off the fasten seat belt sign for a while. Our approach into LAX was typical, flying past and north of the airport, then turning in and lining up for touchdown on runway 24R at 1449. As we touched down, I noticed one of Air New Zealand's Lord of the Rings 747s was parked at Terminal 2. As we made our way towards United Express's remote terminal, I noticed one of the Ted A320s landed behind us. We parked at the remote terminal at 1500. Upon disembarking, we were directed to a bus that took us to Terminal 7. During the bus ride, I noticed the Mexicana retro-jet 757 landing on runway 25L. I made my way out of the terminal. I was meeting my parents who were flying in on Hawaiian, and I always need more exercise, so I walked along the upper level around the U from Terminal 7 to Terminal 2. Passing the Tom Bradley International Terminal, I saw one of the Singapore Airlines A340-500s that operate the new LAX-SIN nonstop flights. Sunday, February 8, 2004 United Express operated by SkyWest Airlines flight 6095 LAX-MRY Scheduled: 1815-1932 Actual: 1815-1921 Embraer EMB-120ER N289YV seat 8A Note: According to Airlinerlist.com, this aircraft was built as an EMB-120RT, and later converted to an ER. My parents were flying home on Monday, but I had to be back in Monterey, so I has booked to fly home Sunday afternoon. To save them an extra trip to LAX, I took the AirportBus from the hotel. Traffic was very light, being Sunday afternoon, and the trip from Anaheim to LAX took only a half hour. So I ended up having quite a bit of time to wait. Arriving at Terminal 7, I went to one of the empty kiosks and checked myself in. After getting my boarding pass, I headed over to the security checkpoint where there were just a couple people in front of me in line. No difficulties there. I headed up to the gate and checked with an agent to see when they advised to be on the shuttle to the remote terminal. She said I should be there no later than 1745. Having at least an hour at that point, I figured I might as well stay in Terminal 7 for a while. I went out and sat down at a seat near gate 74, at the very end of the terminal. Notable aircraft I saw while waiting included a Ted A320, Air Tahiti Nui A340-300, Lufthansa A340, and a United Express CRJ-700. Around 1710 I decided I ought to head over to the remote terminal. This was my first time inside United Express' LAX remote terminal. It's not a bad facility. The counter agent in Terminal 7 said there was no food at the remote terminal. That's not exactly true, there are vending machines. The windows seemed rather darkly tinted, it seemed much darker outside than it really was; the difference was quite noticeable when a door was open. Eventually my flight started boarding through gate 71F. United's computerized boarding pass scanners were present but were not used. When I saw what aircraft we were headed to, I made a mental note of the registration to write down once I was seated, and guessed from the registration that this was an ex-Mesa aircraft (a guess that Airlinerlist.com confirmed). Exactly on time at 1815 we pulled away from the gate. We made the long taxi over to runway 24L and finally took off at 1823. This flight was not full, there were empty seats scattered about. Service was the same as the flight down, except that the flight attendant did not offer the full can. I selected cranberry juice this time, and thumbed through the SkyMall catalog. Again a smooth flight. The captain turned off the fasten seat belt sign for about 5 minutes towards the end of the flight. Touched down on runway 28L at 1921, and were parked on the ramp at 1923. Another United Express flight pulled away from the ramp as we touched down. I disembarked the aircraft, went into the terminal, up the stairs and out to my car. While walking to the car an American Eagle Saab 340, also from LAX landed. -- David Mueller / MRY dmueller7@xxxxxxxxx http://www.quanterium.com