- Welcome to Denver in Colorado.
hub of course, to United Airlines.
And today we're taking a flight to Los Angeles.
But it's not the direct flight,
because that'd be far too easy.
We're going to be trying out
the essential air service that connects Denver
in Colorado with Prescott, Arizona
- a little town over in Arizona,
and then onwards to Los Angeles.
- So we're only flying in coach today,
only because I want to get a view
of that CRJ200 engine at the back of the plane.
Of course, avgeekness wins over comfort any day.
So I'm not sure whether I can
get into the United lounge or not
with my Star Alliance Gold Membership,
so we'll go and give it a go and see if they'll let me in.
- Hello. Good morning.
Can I get in with Star Gold?
- Oh, good.
Thank you.
Here we go.
Let me in yay.
Some comfort now for a bit.
I always find that United lounges,
some of the best in the US.
There's a good selection
of snacks and an open bar.
Look at the entire airport though.
The lounge was really busy today.
I have to say, this is the busiest airport I've seen
since before last March.
All right.
It's time to head to the gate.
She'll be boarding in about 10 minutes or so.
Oh, my masks looks all wonky, doesn't it.
Heading to the gate should be there in a couple
of minutes and then boarding in about 10 minutes.
- My ride today was an 18 year old CRJ200
delivered to Sky West in 2003.
It operated for Delta until 2020,
when she started flying for United.
- Do we have any global service or 1K members?
You are also welcome to board at this time.
- Hello
- Hello, how are you doing?
- I'm good, how are you?
- Good. Thank you. Have a good day.
- Thank you, you too.
- Hello.
Hi, how are you doing?
- Hello, welcome on board.
- Right then, onboard flight one of the
essential air service route down to Prescott.
- So I'm going to be connecting there, it's a little town
in Arizona, somewhere heading down to LAX,
later on this afternoon on a CRJ200. Awesome.
We can ensure all larger items do have a place
on this aircraft.
And ladies and gentlemen, a little heads up.
Its pretty cold out there, we are going to
be de-icing today.
- The flight down to Prescott was rammed today.
A lot of passengers have been bumped onto this flight to get
to Phoenix.
After one of the Phoenix flights was canceled due
to weather.
Denver airport is absolutely massive.
Stay tuned for a video I have coming in a couple
of weeks time where I'm back here,
and I'll be showing you around this huge airport.
We had to de-ice today.
So headed down to the de-icing ramp to get sprayed.
- Our first leg today, then took us southwest
across Colorado and into Arizona.
Before descending into Prescott.
Flight time today was one hour and 28 minutes,
cruising at 30,000 feet.
- Soon after take off, there was a drinks service.
- I have to say
that the flight attendant was absolutely lovely
on this flight, and took time to speak to everyone.
- Interestingly, the captain has just come on and gone,
'Oh yeah, I'm just about to turn off the
fasten seatbelt sign'
Flicked a switch, and it went ding,
but he's actually turned off the no smoking sign.
So now, well, we're not allowed to get out of our seats
but we can smoke a cigarette. Yay!
I don't smoke, never smoked, in my life. Ha ha.
- Well, bit of bumpy air there.
No smoking sign's come back on again.
Time to put out those cigarettes hah.
It soon got really bumpy,
to the extent that the lovely flight attendant
was telling people to open air vents,
and reminding people where the stick bags were
which is the first time that I've ever really
had this on a flight.
- Once again we do apologize for this turbulence,
and we should have you all on the ground shortly.
- Pretty soon though, we started our descent
into Prescott for our first stop of the day.
- Have a good one, thank you, watch your head.
- Thank you, I'm off to LAX.
- Oh you're LAX? Perfect,
so he's been looking for you.
- Oh, okay.
- And he'll tell you where to go!
- Okay, perfect. Thank you. See you soon.
- Thank you!
- LAX thank you!
- Do you have a screen tag or anything?
- No, just it's checked through,
the red one in there.
- Come on this way.
So if you just go that way, you'd have to go through TSA.
- Here you go sir.
- Thank you very much.
- You only had one bag, right?
- Yeah its the red one on the back there.
- Yeah as you can see, its making it.
- Its made it all the way, yeah.
- Made it all the way it's two stops in so far.
- Good, sir.
- Thank you.
Prescott airport sees around 24,000 passengers a year
with two departures a day to Denver and Los Angeles
on the Sky West flights.
Since I filmed this video, Boutique Air have also
started serving Prescott with two daily flights to Phoenix.
There's no restaurant or shop here, but they do have snacks
that you can buy on an honor system just
by dropping your money in the box.
I have a feeling that there's not many places
in the world that would use an honor system in an airport.
So then on the ground here in Prescott, Arizona.
- Can you keep your mouth shut for a moment love.
- We've got about an hour here in the airport,
before we get back on board with the same CRJ,
you can continue onwards to, ah, Los Angeles,
nice little airport this, actually.
- Hello!
- All right sir, you have a safe flight.
- Thank you very much.
Pretty soon though, it was time to get on board the CRJ
for the next leg across to Los Angeles.
That was, of course, once the flight attendants had opened
up the curtains to let us all on.
- How you doing, you all right?
- Right, back on board, same CRJ, same seats,
short hop now across to LAX.
Let's roll.
- Yeah I didn't understand a word of that either.
To be honest, the flight attendant on this
leg couldn't be more of a contrast
to the friendly crew on the previous flights.
- I was actually surprised
at the contrast between the two flights
on the same day and on the same route.
The friendly chatty Southern flight attendants
on the first flight and the second who seemed
like she really didn't want to be there.
The last flight of the day that took us
on a very strange route in due to the weather.
We first flew south to the Mexican border, then turned west
along the border to San Diego,
before flying northward towards Los Angeles.
Flight time was one hour and 26 minutes,
cruising at 32,000 feet.
The usual flight time on this leg is under an hour.
So it took half as long again as the regular flight.
- Now for me as a tall person
this is the problem with the CRJ200.
And that has the windows are just so far down.
The reason for that is that the CRJ200 is actually based
off of a business jet design, the Bombardier Challenger
and effectively, they just raise the floor
so they can fit four passenger seats
across which therefore means
that the windows are a lot lower
down and you get a bit of crick neck if ever
you're trying to look out of the window.
Now the CRJ700's, the 900's and 1000's,
they don't have that problem because they were built
from the ground up as a passenger commercial aircraft.
So the windows are pretty much at the same height
and the right height that you'd need, but on the 200
it's always a bit of a squeeze.
And I always find myself with a really sore neck when I get
off of one of these,
simply because I like looking out the window. Ha ha.
This leg was somehow even bumpier than the last one.
But this time there was no friendly advice from the crew,
who we didn't see, for the majority of the flight.
- Oh my goodness, this flight is so bumpy.
Ohh.
That is strange.
Because normally, when you get bumpy air
it doesn't feel that bad,
but the CRJ200, it feels really bad.
It's actually making me a little bit queasy and
I've barely eaten. Crikey.
- Now thanks to the bad weather that was in the way
between Prescott, Arizona and Los Angeles.
We're flying really far south,
right along the border between the US and Mexico.
And right at this moment in time
on this side of the aircraft, we have the USA
and that side of the aircraft we have Mexico.
Cool. Right?
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- The sun started setting as we made our way
up the coast of California
to Los Angeles for a beautiful approach over the city.
- Before long, the bright lights of Los Angeles
came into view and we started our descent
over the city into Los Angeles International Airport.
- My flight today cost me 261 pounds or
358 US dollars.
This works out to a cost of 29 pence per mile.
Considering a direct flight on a 737 would have cost
under a hundred dollars and taking just two
and a half hours, as opposed to the four it took me.
Would you take the CRJ over the direct flight?
Let me know down in the comments.
- I'd like to say a big thanks to
my Patreons as well today.
You can join them at the link
on the screen now, to join my WhatsApp group
and get access to my weekly zoom call as well
as loads of other benefits.
Well, here we are then Los Angeles, great little flight over
with United express on the essential air service.
That was pretty cool wasn't it, seeing Prescott, Arizona?
Hope you enjoyed this video.
Let me know what you thought
to it down below in the comments.
In the meantime as always, thanks for watching.
Take care and I'll see you on the next one.
Bye for now.