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Departure Airport: Martha’s Vineyard Airport (MVY/KMVY) 
Arrival Airport: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK/KJFK) [@Anthony_Gulluscio summon]
Aircraft: Airbus A220-300 [@Poxy summon]
Livery: JetBlue
Flight Time: 0:55
Server: Expert
I got to the Martha’s Vineyard Airport about 60 minutes before my flight. The terminal is quite small, with just a few check in desks and a couple TSA lines. To my surprise, however, it was totally packed, with the line for JetBlue bag drop snaking out the door. Luckily, I didn’t have anything to check, so I was able to proceed right through security. The post security area is pretty bare, with just a couple bathrooms and a small store. Most of the waiting area is outside under tents. The weather was nice, albeit a little windy, so I wasn’t too bothered by this, but I could see how it could be a problem on wet or cold days that Cape Cod is very familiar with.
After about 15 minutes of waiting, I saw my aircraft for today, a JetBlue A220-300 named “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” pulling onto the stand after a 35 minute flight from my destination, New York-JFK.
We boarded right on time. A gate agent lined us up in order by boarding zone and led us out in one big long line to the plane. It was pretty cool to walk across the ramp, past an American Eagle E175 headed to Chicago and another JetBlue A220 loading up for Boston. Getting everyone on was quick, and the doors shut with about half the seats full. My seat, directly behind the wind on the right side, was pretty comfortable, with an adjustable headrest and an adequate amount of padding. As we settled in, the captain made his welcome aboard announcement.
“From the flight deck, this is your captain speaking. We’d like to give you a very warm welcome aboard JetBlue Airlines flight 1212, service over to New York’s Kennedy Airport. Expecting about 40 minutes from takeoff to touchdown, cruising up at 10,000 feet. We actually just got in from JFK, so I’d anticipate a similar ride back, overall smooth with a few bumps on the landing. Please make sure those seatbelts are fastened at all times, as due to the short duration of our flight, the seatbelt sign will remain on for the duration. Once again, welcome aboard, 40 minutes to JFK, should be pushing back shortly.”
The pushback and taxi was very quick, complete with ample amounts of whale noises as the engines started up. We took off like a rocket from Runway 6, and almost immediately dipped into a left hand turn.
As we climbed out over the Northern part of the island, I noted that it was an exceptionally quiet ride. I could very easily converse with my seatmate without having to raise my voice to be heard over the engines one bit.
We very quickly reached our cruising altitude of 10,000 feet near Providence, Rhode Island. Because of how short the flight was, there was no service, which was totally understandable. I took the time to explore my IFE screen. There was a very nice moving map, as well as a great selection of content to view. Definitely would be enough to keep me occupied on JetBlue’s longer runs to Europe, so far beyond sufficient for this regional hop.
As we caught our first glimpse of Long Island, the captain made his pre-arrival announcement.
“We are beginning our approach and landing into New York’s Kennedy Airport. Weather on the ground is 71 degrees with a low cloud deck, fog, and rain. Winds are gusting from the Northeast pretty strong, about 25 miles per hour. For that reason, I do expect some bumps on the way down. Should have you on the ground in about 15 minutes, once we do land we’re expecting a quick taxi into gate 8 at Terminal 5.”
The approach started out pretty nice, affording us great views of the more densely populated towns on Long Island as we drew closer to the city.
As we dipped into the very thick cloud deck, things definitely got a little more iffy. The wind was buffeting us from all sides, and we had some pretty nasty bumps on base. We got extremely close to the runway, to the point where we were in the flare before I noted something was off. The left wing was clearly dipped and we seemed to be stuck in vertical space.
The thousands footers came and went beneath us. Then, suddenly the engine revved to life and the nose pitched up. There were a few surprised gasps from around the cabin as we climbed back into the clouds.
After a couple minutes of climbing, we leveled off at 4,500’ and the captain made an announcement. “This is your captain speaking. We do apologize for that, what we just did was called a go around. We were floating down the runway a little too much because of those winds, so we made the decision to terminate the landing attempt for everyone’s safety. We’re now going to circle back around for another go at it, should only be about 10 minutes. Thank you.”
The second attempt was much more successful. We smashed onto the runway and the brakes equally as hard. There was a smattering of applause as we turned off and held short of 4L for departing traffic.
As advertised, the taxi to the gate was extremely short. We deplaned, and I caught one last glimpse of my plane before heading across the airport to another A220, this one wearing the Delta livery, to take me home to Minneapolis.
