I HATE regional jets!

A great airplane...when it's running on time.

I used to love RJs. For flights under two hours or so, they were great. You never had to worry about room for your carry-on bags because you could just drop it planeside and grab it when you got off the plane.

But lately, I've not had a single flight on an RJ that wasn't delayed for some reason or another. Maybe it's because all the airlines are flying so many of them that there are just too many of them in the sky. A little known drawback of RJs is that while they carry about half the passengers of a typical short-haul "normal" jet like an MD-80 or 737, they take up every bit as much space in the air traffic system.

I'm sitting at the airport in Richmond because my 12:35 flight was going to be so late that I would have missed my connection in Atlanta for Orlando. The Delta ticket agent, helpful as always, got me on a 16:05 flight, which just happens to be direct from Richmond to Orlando. Now, I don't know why our ace corporate travel folks couldn't have gotten me on this flight to begin with, but I'm on it now.

Of course, that direct flight is also on an RJ...