Point Me to the Miles

DC for 4 Days: Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP) to Pasco, WA (PSC)

Introduction, PSC-SLC, SLC-DTW, DTW-DCA, Ritz Carlton Pentagon City Review, Exploring Washington, DC-Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4; DCA-ATL, ATL-MSP, MSP-PSC, Conclusion                                                                                                                                                              _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

DL 4769/CRJ-900

Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP) to Pasco, WA (PSC)

Depart:  9:40 PM          Arrive: 10:49 PM, PDT [3 Hours, 9 Minutes]

Seat: 3A (First)

When putting together my recent post on the World’s Best and Worst Airport Terminals, I tried to think of the best and worst that I personally had been in.  Usually, any airport experience is great for me due to my love of flying, but if I had to pick a least favorite I think I would have to pick the Minneapolis airport.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of great stuff in the airport, – a number of restaurants, a a couple of SkyClubs, and the nation’s largest mall is only a mile away.  But the airport layout can be a royal pain.  It is basically seven different concourses laid out in a huge square.  But what makes it so annoying is while there is a train system, it is not very efficient for crossing between two different concourses, say C and G.

MSP Layout

So getting from one side of the square to another may require walking all the way to the corner of the airport, turn and walk ALL the way down that concourse, then walk part of the way down the third.  So even with the advent of the existing train system, it is so spread out in such a random pattern it can still be irritating trying to navigate your way around.

All that to say I was very fortunate on this particular evening.  After landing in Minneapolis, I only had to walk a couple hundred feet to get from my connecting gate to my departing gate.

I had about half an hour to wait for my flight home to board, so I grabbed some coffee (Caribou Coffee–just can’t find it here in Washington state) then waited around for a bit in the gate area.

When boarding was finally called, only 7 of 9 seats in the 3 x 3 First Class cabin of the “regional” jet were taken. I was offered a pre-departure beverage right away, and went with a coffee and Baileys.  We took off on time-on, and I did some work on my laptop, but slept most of the flight.

I always find traveling between my home airport of Pasco and Minneapolis ironic. Despite the small, quaint size (4 gates) of PSC and the use of a regional jet, it is usually my longest flight of any leg when flying at domestic, at just over 3 hours.

Finally, weary and jet-lagged I arrived back home.  Drearily I walked though the brightly lit, yet empty airport and had to wait seemingly forever for my luggage.  And my bags were Priority tagged, whatever that means in this case.