De Plane, De Plane!

If only my little Cessna had been taking me to Fantasy Island instead of Evansville, IN. Tuesday morning I awoke at the crack of dawn (3:30am) and caught an early flight to begin my week of work in Evansville, IN. I took your normal American flight from DFW to Indianapolis and realized that I didn't have a boarding pass for my connecting flight in Indianapolis. No biggie, I'll get it in Indy.

When I arrive in Indy, I check the monitor and my flight says Gate C. Every other gate says C2 or B11...why no number???!! So I find Terminal C and search for my gate. I see a banner that says Cape Air (I'd never heard of this airline either), but no counter or gate agent. Hmm... I finally ask another agent (Air Tran) and he points me in the direction of the banner, but there's not counter, just the Frontier counter. He says "they use the grey podium next to the Frontier counter". Just a podium...should I be scared???!!

So I head over there and no agent yet at the grey podium. Finally, an agent shows up! I tell her my saga about not having a boarding pass and she says no problem let's check your flight. Yep, we've got you in seat 3A...sounds good to me. Well, they were having printer problems so she couldn't print my boarding pass, but she said don't worry I know you're in seat 3A. I'm thinking okay, I'm glad you'll let me on because I'm ready to get there...it's already been a long day. Then she says "how much do you weigh?" EXCUSE ME???!!! I'm sorry, but that's confidential information that doesn't just get broadcasted in an airport. So I whisper excuse me, she says I'm sorry honey, but we have to ask everyone as it's required for the plane. EXCUSE ME??!!! Required for the plane??!! I've flown my fair share of prop jets and have never had to reveal my weight. I will say that she was so sweet and when I told her she said "are you sure, you can't weigh that much?" Am I sure, as sure as I am that the earth is round. So while I appreciate the compliment (I think), I always love when it's followed up by "you can't weigh that much".

Anyway, about 30 minutes later it's time to board the plane and there are only 3 of us left now that the Frontier flight has boarded. We go down the hallway and out a door onto the runway and there is the smallest commercial plane I've ever seen. It seats 8 people, the pilot, and the co-pilot (however, I was told that they sell the co-pilots seat to the general public). There is no aisle, it's almost like crawling into the back of an SUV. It is so loud that you can barely hear yourself think and you never get high enough not to see the ground beneath you. As we're making our descent we encounter several white clouds so the only thing any of us can see is the lovely white from the clouds...kinda scary!!!!!

The flight really wasn't that bad, but definitely not what I was expecting. Thankfully, on Friday I'll be boarding an American Eagle flight home. The picture below was not my actual plane, but it looks pretty close except that I think it might be slightly bigger.