Flight Details
Departure Airport: West Virginia International Yeager Airport (CRW/KCRW)
Arrival Airport: Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL/KATL)
Airline: Delta Connection (operated by Endeavor Air)
Aircraft: CRJ-900
Flight Time: 1:16
Server: Expert
I got to Yeager Airport, just northeast of Downtown Charleston, West Virginia, 90 minutes ahead of my 8:30 AM departure to Atlanta. I parked my car in the long term parking lot, dropped off my bags at the Delta counter, and breezed through security. This was just the first leg of three. After landing in Atlanta, I’d have an hour or so until my flight down to Lima, Peru, on Delta’s A350-900. That flight gets into Lima in the late afternoon, and I’d booked a hotel before taking the final flight first thing tomorrow morning with LATAM to Cusco, in the Southeast of the country, my final destination.
My plane got in ahead of schedule from Atlanta, and had a planned 50 minutes on the ground before taking off with us back there. There’s not a lot post security at Yeager Airport, with just a gift shop and a lone cafe with halfway decent coffee and bagels.
We boarded quickly and pushed back a full 8 minutes ahead of schedule. It was a light load today, with only about 1/3rd of the seats fill, and I lucked out, with an aisle to myself. It’s a very short taxi out to Runway 5, and there was no other traffic at the airport today to impede our route.
We rocketed out of the airport and made a southernly bank. It was extremely gusty on our initial climbout, and I could see the ailerons working overtime to keep us stable. As we got higher, it remained bumpy, but that’s not all too uncommon in the Appalachians in the Winter.
Despite the very rocky conditions, the flight attendants still did a drink and snack service. I had a coffee and Biscoff cookies, which was more than I expected on this hour long hop to Atlanta. The turbulence persisted at our cruising altitude of 28,000 feet, which made drinking my coffee very difficult, but other than that, didn’t bother me all too much.
We made a sweeping bank due south over Kentucky, where the captain came on and asked the flight attendants to take their seats. He warned us that there were high winds expected on landing, and it was only going to get more turbulent as we got closer to ATL.
We had a very bouncy approach for Runway 26L, coming in behind a Delta 757. At the last minute, as we were in the flare, we got hit with a sudden blast of wind which caused us to float. The pilots decided to execute a go around, and we shot out off like a rocket.
The captain came on shortly after our go around and apologized, explaining the situation. We made a wide second approach, passing over the southern fringes of the Atlanta suburbs on downwind.
We had a firm, but much more successful landing on the second go, touching down to a round of applause on Runway 27R, Atlanta’s longest.
Despite our little mishap on the first approach, we got in 28 minutes early. I was quite happy about this, since it meant I had extra time to enjoy Atlanta’s SkyClub before my connection.
Stay tuned for another trip report tomorrow, from Atlanta to Lima in Economy on Delta’s A350!
