First time visiting my hometown with the new rendering engine and I am impressed! I chose to do this particular route with this particular aircraft because it’s one of three flights I saw departing LAX for Nashville this past Sunday and because it’s the first flight to BNA from Terminal 2 I’ve seen in years. Since the revamped Terminal 3 reopened a couple years back, I’ve flown through it every time I’ve gone home from L.A. I figured that I haven’t done a BNA trip report in a while, so what better way to inaugurate it in the new engine than with this flight?
Server: Solo
Airline: Delta Air Lines
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800
Origin: Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, California (LAX)
Destination: Nashville International Airport, Nashville, Tennessee (BNA)
Flight Number: DL449
Route: KLAX-KBNA
Seat: 4A (Domestic First)
Time En Route: 3 Hours 51 Minutes
Waiting to board at Gate 28 at Terminal 2. Due to it not having undergone the extensive refurbishment of Terminal 3, T2 is decidedly less palatial and a bit more crowded, as Delta is currently sharing it with Jetblue and LATAM Airlines Brasil and Chile.
Taxiing to Runway 24L as an Air Premia 787-9 departs for Seoul as YP102. We’re seated in the rearmost row of Delta’s refurbished Domestic First cabin, which uses the same Recaro seats as on the airline’s A321neo aircraft. While the older Domestic First seat was still quite good, it was starting to show its age and this is definitely a worthy successor.
Taking off from LAX as we climb away from the largely empty remote stands. Behind us, a United Airlines 787-10 is just getting airborne for Tokyo-Haneda as UA39.
Coming around Palos Verdes as we climb over the Pacific. It should be a mostly clear, calm, turbulence-free ride to Tennessee today.
Cruising at 35,000 feet over Eastern Arizona. We’re having the marinara braised meatballs from Dela’s Domestic First menu, served with polenta and ricotta cheese. The catering is pretty good, probably the best of the Big 3 U.S. carriers.
Afternoon over Oklahoma. Not much is going on up here. Quiet flights are always good.
Final descent over Highway 46 down in Hickman County, Tennessee, looking north towards the town of Dickson. Despite it sharing the same name as the county it’s in, Dickson is actually not the county seat. That honor goes to the town of Charlotte, about 20 to 25 minutes north of town on Highway 48. A bit east of Charlotte is Dickson Municipal Airport (M02), which can handle aircraft up to the size of a Hawker 900XP or Citation 560/560XL and is home to Chushon Aviation, which specializes in maintenance on the somewhat uncommon Mitsubishi MU-2. Not bad for a small-town airport!
Arriving at BNA in the late afternoon on Runway 02C. We managed to synchronize our photo with the flash of the wingtip strobe light, which is quite a feat. Due to BNA’s 3 main runways all being slightly over a mile, touching down early is critical, and deceleration is swift. However, it’s nothing like San Diego or Burbank, where crews often reduce thrust to flight idle to rapidly bleed off altitude, and landings are often jarring.
Turning clear of the runway with the skyline of Downtown Nashville in the distance. The cargo apron in the background has its usual complement of FedEx 757-200Fs and A300-600RFs, with a larger-than-usual visitor, an Atlas Air 747-400BCF, sticking out like a sore thumb after arriving from Anchorage. Though BNA gets scheduled 747 service from Atlas, they’re nowhere near as common as FedEx’s freighters, so it’s always special to see them. In the past, we’ve had scheduled 747 service from China Airlines Cargo from Taipei via Anchorage, been visited by an Evergreen International Airlines 747-200SF, and had a Cathay Pacific Cargo 747-400ERF divert here in 2019 due to thunderstorms in Atlanta.
Deplaned at Gate B3. After all of our long-haul flying to various far-flung corners of the world, it’s nice being home for a bit.