The summer season can bring about random weather pretty much anywhere one goes. However, the Midwest and South both receive their fair share of pop-up thunderstorms because of the heat. The western plains have also seen a lot of unstable weather this summer. Denver, specifically, has seen a number of storms move through the region over the past few weeks. A few of these storms made air travel an absolute mess with multiple lightning strikes on or around the airport. Plenty of delays ensued for all carriers serving the airport.
When I traveled on Wednesday, June 30, the weather was playing a bit nicer than it had a few days prior. Coming into Denver, there were a handful of bumps and cumulus clouds that we jumped around. While waiting for my connecting flight to Chicago O’Hare, the clouds started to move into the north and east of the airport. Knowing how things had gone the days prior, one could begin to wonder if we soon were going to be experiencing a weather-related delay. The weather stayed at bay, but instead, my inbound aircraft was delayed because of the weather in Chicago where it was coming from.
Despite the inbound delay, we only departed about an hour behind schedule. We took off to the east, which meant that we were likely going to be doing some fancy footwork to get through, above, and around the storms in the area. Our climb out of Denver took a bit longer than normal to start the cloud dance. Before long we were making some strong banks to the north and northwest to keep things as calm as they could be.
After some time, we reached our cruising altitude of 27,000 feet, which is a bit lower than normal. But seeing the clouds around us, there was clearly weather dotting the plains below us. Instead of flying directly east towards Chicago, we took a more northern route over Iowa. It was around here that we cruised up to 32,000 feet and stayed there through our descent into the Windy City.
As you can see from the pictures below, it was a neat climb out from Denver as there were plenty of clouds and shadows to enjoy.
While sitting at the gate, the aircraft started getting a bit warm because the APU (auxiliary power unit) wasn’t working on the aircraft, which meant that we had to wait for the engines to be started because the A/C and such would kick in. I had an exit row seat on this flight, and this specific aircraft was one of American’s that still has the at-seat entertainment. With the seats at the exit rows, the screens fold down for safety reasons. While my screen turned on and off, it, in fact, didn’t actually work. After resetting the screen multiple times, it still didn’t respond to the touch, oh well.
My in-flight crew was quite awesome though. They were all very pleasant and professional throughout the entire flight. Especially since they were the crew that brought the aircraft in from Chicago where they waited at the gate without cool air for quite some time because of the weather moving through the area. In-flight service is what it is at this point. Water, sodas, and pretzels. I’m looking forward to actual food items returning to flights.
Flight Details:
Flight: American Airlines 2363 | Airbus A321-200 (N118NN)
Route: Denver-Chicago (DEN-ORD) | Dp 6:39 p.m., Ar 9:59 p.m.
Seat: 12F
