Dichotomy...

Independence Air: This is the new "budget" airline based out of Dulles. Their flights aren't substantially cheaper than anyone else as far as I found, but it's always nice to have an extra option. And they did have flights at convenient times to Greenville, unlike Delta, United, Airtran, or anyone else really. Their operation at Dulles is a little sketchy though. They have a huge check in counter, but the 4 or 5 times I've walked past it recently, there's never been anyone there, passenger or staff. And they have these really slick looking self check-in kiosks, but they're not at the ticket counter, they're at the gates. How does that help you when you need a boarding pass to get past security to the gate in the first place? And at Dulles they herd all the passengers into a holding area with 8-10 gates. But they'll have 4 flights leaving the same gate within 15 minutes of each other. There's no jetway and you just cross your fingers you boarded the right plane on the tarmac. This is not the case with Independence at other airports, only at Dulles apparently. Their 50 passenger iJets (at least the little i in this case is justified and not just there to sound hip and techy) are on the smallish side, so if you're planning to take anything bigger than a laptop bag on the plane, either check it before security to save yourself the hassle, or just expect to have it taken away from you planeside. You'll get it back planeside though, so that was nice. The seats are standard economy size seats, but they're leather and quite comfortable. And in the exit aisle, there was plenty of legroom. I experienced none of the usual back spasms or pins and needles in my lower legs as a result of constricting the blood flow when my knees get crushed into the seat in front of me. While taxiing, instead of the flight attendant doing the safety demo, they got James Carville and some congresswoman to do it, about the left and right side of the plane. It was amusing the first time, but I'll bet that gets old really really fast for people who fly a lot. In flight they have a good selection of drinks and snacks. You get full size bags of chips or pretzels, not those dinky little bags of snackmix on Delta, or your 3 pretzels on Northwest. They also have fresh brewed iced tea, which I thought was good, but anyone south of DC would probably complain that it wasn't sweet enough. They as you begin your descent, they come around with hot towelettes and mints. I have to say service aboard the plane was fantastic going both directions. Their operation at Dulles leaves a lot to be desired, but from the look of things, they're busy working on their terminal, so I expect that will get better. The prices were about the same as other airlines for all the flights I was interested in, but if you were flying someplace else, maybe it'd be better. The planes are nice too. I'd fly them again for sure. For a comparable price, you get better on-board service and fast loading/unloading at the gate than almost any other domestic airline.

Posted by Rev. Adam on Monday, September 27, 2004 at 12:09 PM | Permalink