Inbound to IAH
My campus borders the flight path for incoming flights to Houston’s Intercontinental Airport which makes a walk across campus a treat, since I can’t hear a plane without looking up in the air to see what it is.
It’s nearly always a Continental or Continental Express plane, but I just watched an orange and teal America West plane fly in, which sent me into time travel mode. This was a treat because America West’s planes were wiped from the sky to be repainted in USAirways’ most-generic-paint-job-ever after their merger a few years ago. This either means that I am on a Twilight Zone episode or that I just saw the repainted “legacy” plane that USAirways keeps in its fleet to remind us of their history. If I see any dinosaurs on campus today, I will believe it is choice one. Otherwise, I’m betting on the second.
America West takes me back in many other ways also. On my first trip to New York City, I flew America West from Chicago to La Guardia via Columbus (CMH). I have some keepsakes from that flight in my box of airline memorabilia. And, in the years I spent living in Columbus, America West planes were common in the skies. I almost went to work for America West in those days, but it was the worst shift in the world so I passed it up. They closed the hub shortly after because it was bleeding a million dollars a year, so it looks like I made the right choice.
If you are on USAirways flight 1978 today, I wish you a pleasant journey to Charlotte. Unless you’re headed back in time to the Twilight Zone.