I took my first flight of the year tonight, JFK-LAX. We were delayed a little on departure, but scheduled to arrive on time. Until we got around Las Vegas, at which time the pilot came on and said that the air around L.A. was really choppy and we’d have a bumpy descent. She wasn’t kidding! I fly a good 150k+ miles a year and I can’t remember the last flight I took that was this turbulent. We encountered a lot of choppy air on the approach, and apparently it was so windy that air traffic control at LAX was instructing westbound planes to fly out over the ocean and approach landing on the east runway. We did that, but it was still amazingly bumpy.

I guess it could’ve been worse – as I was on the parking shuttle I heard a girl next to me talking about her flight, which attempted landing, had a failed attempt, and had to go back up and circle around again. She said people were screaming on the second attempt at landing. I know I’m pretty immune to inflight scare factors, but screaming? Is that really necessary? At best it’s going to make you look like you’re overreacting, and at worst it’s going to freak out all of your fellow passengers and possibly make someone who was relatively calm have a much more unsettling experience.

I know it’s a long shot, but were any readers on any inbound flights Friday night with screamers onboard?

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