Tier Point Run to Cancun in Jan 2014: Day 2 – Los Angeles (LAX) to Las Vegas (LAS)

So for the final flight of this first mileage trip run to Cancun and back, I headed out to Gate 46B.

The passengers on the inbound flight were just getting off, and it reminded me how quickly they turnaround these planes for the outbound.

I guess there’s not that much that they need to do, but it’s impressive none the less.

Within 5 mins of the last passengers off boarding, they invited First passengers to board, and I was in 4B – to be honest I could have been in almost any seat in First since it was a very empty flight. Out of 16 First seats, only 3 were occupied, so I changed to 4F and sat by the window.

Thought about taking more piccies, but the senior FA didn’t turn down the lights for some reason for take off and landing. I have to say I thought that was a pre-requisite of night time flights.

Anyway the flight was less than an hour – I got a glass of Sam Adams to celebrate the last flight and a look forward to a good night’s rest. There was no food to speak of, other than those horrible pretzel things, but I did eat the rest of the Haribo cola bottles – I do have a thing about Haribo now.

Arrival was quick and I was into a very quiet LAS airport concourse D. It was 9:30pm and I debated whether to wait for the HGI Henderson airport shuttle (which I thought was due around 10:20pm) or grab a taxi. If the taxi was around $20 then I thought it might be worth it. However I did a quick check on the hotel’s website and they suggested it was more likely to be $45 so that made that decision.

When I got down to level 0 and to the hotel shuttle pick up area, I rang the hotel and they told me it should be with me in about 10 mins or so – bonus.

I shared the hotel shuttle bus with a number of flight crew – two pilots and a FA. One was talking about him trying to get on a flight from Salt Lake City to JFK to start work on Fri morning, and how he was on standby most of the day, and due to the weather in NYC there were 30+ standbys for each flight. In the end he decided to head out west instead.

Another pilot was talking about the cut backs to their working arrangements. Apparently they are no longer paying travel time, nor travel expenses and this is forcing pilots to move around airlines to find better working conditions. Interesting to hear how these down to earth issues affect everyone.

Checked into my room which is not the same one as we had in the run up to NYE, and quickly hit the sack for some well earned rest.

Follow the whole story here: Tier Point Run to Cancun in Jan 2014