Hello and welcome to my first “flight review”! Today I’m flying a CRJ700 onboard American eagle (operated by PSA) from White plains to Washington DC. American airlines has maintained a strong peresence at both HPN and DCA, although DCA is one of their hubs, This route started in 2024, and has stayed proving its longevity as a route.HPN, or westchester county airport is becoming a secondary airport for the NYC market, serving regional destinations, while DCA is Washington’s DC’s secondary airport for the same purpose as HPN.
Server: Expert
Flight time: 00:38
Origin: KHPN, White Plains, NY
Destinstion: KDCA, Washington DC, MD
After quickly making our way through security (even in the TSA shortage, HPN manages to stay speedy) we make our way over to the bus gates. It seems as though our flight is delayed, but that just gives more time to look around the airport. JetBlue and Brezze airways both have many flights and are competing for the top spot at the airport, which gives travelers many more leisure options while carriers like American and Delta fly to large destinations like Chiacao.
After a 55 minute delay, we board the aircraft, The weather today is quite cloudy, but when we break through the clouds that’ll all be changed. We’re sat in seat 18A today, near the back of the cabin. The aircraft is arranged in a 2-2 configuration, making it an uncomfortable journey, but it’ll be short so that’s ok. The CF34-8CI engines aren’t visible to us, but begin to roar to life as we pushback and taxi out to runway 16 today. Taking off, construction is witnessed beneath us for the HPN modernization to bring new light to the traffic at the airport. No expansion like gates will be brought but travelers will get a much nicer experience coming in and out of the airport and not have such cramped waiting conditions like we did today. Other than that, the homes and rolling hills of westchester county accompany us on our journey today, similar to what we’ll be seeing throughout this short flight along the east coast. This style of home is very common. Nearing crusining altitude, we can see LGA, JFK, Central Park and all of manhatten! An amazing yet uncommon view, but this is also seen by jets descending into LGA at higher altitudes. EWRwas below us, so we had to climb quicker to get out of larger jets ways. The seatbelt sign also turned off, allowing me to head to the bathroom. It quickly turned back on and stayed on for the remandiner of the flight, because of some turbulence. Passing over downtime Philadelphia, after recently leveling off at a low 30,000 feetwe get a drink service which is insane for this short of a flight, but I would hope so if we’re delayed.getting some signature orange juice, we cruise over Philadelphia. Lucky for me, the seat next to me is empty as this route only has a 61 percent load factor. I take my bad and laptop out and try to get some work done on the tiny tables, but I fail and resort to watching YouTube on my phone lol. FINNALY starting our decent over Baltimore, the plane gets quite shaky. This isn’t common as the airspace is quite common among larger jets. I check to see if we’re in anyone’s wake field on flight radar, and see just a E170 coming to DCA, but from JFK. I would say they probably had a better flight than us, because of our delays and uncomfortable aircraft. It would be much better to be on a crj900, due to the size and overall better lighting, windows, and basic things. On final to runway 22 after a rocky decent, we pass over downtown DC and the Potomac river. This is the most major city’s I’ve ever seen in under 40 minutes, lol. Based on the aircraft’s movement,s this is gonna be a rough landing.checking flight radar, there’s not a lot of traffic today at DCA. A CRJ900 heading to charlotte is in the background. I wasn’t really able to grab any photos while taxing, but we have park and deplaned at terminal B. The plane is visible, although since we were delayed passengers waiting to get on the plane for its next leg out to Wichita, KS today so it was hard to sneak in a photo. The CRJ was a pretty mid airplane, uncomfortable, and it really shows why American is updating their reignonal fleet for a better passenger experience. It’s time for a 2 day stopover to explore monuments before heading down to Atlanta with delta!
nothing ever lands on 22 - you have to fly over restricted airspace…