Flights for 2026 President’s Day Trip to Phoenix

For the long weekend around President’s Day 2026, I took a trip to Phoenix, Arizona. This brief post is about some of the scenery visible from my flight there, the snow-covered landscapes of the US East Coast.

Just a few months prior, I had spent several days in and around Tucson during Thanksgiving week 2025. The weather was so pleasant that I resolved to return to Arizona over the Presidents’ Day long weekend in 2026, this time setting my sights on Phoenix. Like Tucson, the city is neighbored by magnificent mountains well worth exploring.

Originally, I was ticketed with a connecting itinerary on the afternoon of Friday, February 13. A schedule change meant I could straighten my flights up.

The circumstances surrounding this Phoenix trip was not ideal. A matter of profound gravity had entered my life only days earlier, and I was still in the disorienting hours of digesting its potentially grave consequences, all while trying to keep up with work on a hectic Friday afternoon in the airport. I must have been thoroughly absorbed — both in my laptop and in my own thoughts — because a boy sitting across from me took it upon himself to sketch a quick portrait of me: a stern, serious figure hunched over his keyboard. It was a small, unexpected spark of humanity against the gloomy shadows that were to settle over my weekend. (There were lots of families on this flight to Phoenix, as one might expect on the Friday before a long weekend.)

The inbound aircraft (N466AN) arrived slightly late from Charlotte, so boarding was slightly delayed. Once onboard, I found my seat cushion’s attachment was somewhat broken, and there was an unusually strong smell of jet fuel lingering in the cabin just before takeoff.

American Airlines 1814
Boston, MA (BOS) – Phoenix, AZ (PHX)
Airbus A321neo (N466AN)
Seat 9F
Scheduled Departure – 4:37pm
Actual Departure – 4:59pm
Scheduled Arrival – 8:39pm
Actual Arrival – 8:33pm
5 hours and 34 minutes
Here’s GPS tracking:

The flight took off shortly before sunset, treating me to views of snow-covered Boston suburbs aglow in the fading light.

Click here to display photos of the slideshow

American Airlines A321neo (N466AN) at Gate
My plane to Phoenix.

Boston Suburb

Middlesex Fells Reservation

Laurence G. Hanscom Field
A general aviation airport outside Concord.

Further west, twilight lingered as we passed over Pittsburgh, before darkness gradually swallowed the landscape below.

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Connecticut River

Hudson River

North Pennsylvania
Susquehanna River winding in the fields, another airplane flying above it.

Northern Pittsburgh Suburb

Ohio River outside Pittsburgh

The rest of the flight was largely uneventful, save for some minor turbulence as we approached Phoenix.

After landing, the experience took a turn for the worse, I retrieved my checked bag a whole 30 minutes after our gate arrival, with typical American Airlines (in)efficiency. Judging by how crowded the baggage claim area was in Phoenix, it struck me that American Airlines could really give the airport infrastructure some upgrade. But my ordeal didn’t end there, exiting the Hertz parking lot proved to be yet another exercise in patience given how understaffed their operation was. It sure looked like every part of the airport was overwhelmed on this Friday night before a long weekend.

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Flights for 2026 President’s Day Trip to Phoenix by Huang's Site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.