Finally got to listen to comms on an airline fligh

[beaky]

For whatever reason, in all my travels, I've never had the opportunity to do this until my last flight: economy seat; US Airways via United, KORD to KEWR.  Even got the headphones for free. I think once I had a chance while flying 1st class but the armrest jack didn't work.

It was very interesting.

I don't know what plan they filed originally, but once they reached cruise alt. they requested a direct clearance to some point (which I've forgotten, unfortunately).

I heard a lot of chatter from other airline flights as well... altitude and route requests that seemed more spontaneous than I'd expected, almost like for GA IFR flights. There seemed to be a layer of turbulence that westbound(?) flights were eager to avoid... one such flight was told to just  stick with their clearance; the controller could not accommodate them (probably due to traffic). Next time your flight gets bumpy, remember that.

The crew on my flight didn't talk to anyone for a long time, then after being cleared to descend, they were given (quite a few) vectors to final for 22R. The approach was visual, as there was only a broken layer at about 7000.
A highlight was NY Approach advising a Bonanza calling in to "get back on your last assigned frequency"... LOL! The pilot acknowledged that command pretty sheepishly.  ;D

[RitterKreuz]

i hear "return to the last frequency" a lot on the radio... sometimes its just that the controller issued the wrong freq. other times the pilot dialed the wrong number  ;D

[beaky]

i hear "return to the last frequency" a lot on the radio... sometimes its just that the controller issued the wrong freq. other times the pilot dialed the wrong number  ;D

This time it sounded like the latter...  ;D

[Brett_Henderson]

That's my biggest weakness, in an IFR cockpit, and why I was never keen on negotiating poor weather, alone.

It's no big deal at smaller airports, when you're filed "just in case", because of marginal visibility or ceilings...