Review: Alaska Airlines Economy 737-900 Los Angeles to Seattle

Review: Alaska Airlines Main Cabin 737-900 Los Angeles to Seattle
Review: Virgin America Economy A320-200 Seattle to Los Angeles

YOUTUBE: Alaska Airlines: Los Angeles to Seattle
YOUTUBE: Virgin America: Seattle to Los Angeles


 

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another trip. This time, it’s a short run to Seattle and back before a more exciting summer trip arrives. But anyways with that being said, let’s get right to it.

We are departing from LAX terminal 6 this fine afternoon. Up to recently, terminal 6 was Continental’s terminal but of course United bought them, but United never fully occupied terminal 6 since they own two terminals at LAX practically: terminals 7 and 8. So terminal 6 has been mostly empty with some flights moving to terminal 6 if no space was there at other terminals. As I said in an earlier report, the departure side of terminals 4-8 is connected by a long hall so it’s easy to walk in between some of them. Alaska now has terminal 6 (well as of this report, they’ve had it for a bit). The terminal is under renovation which you will see a little later in the report.

Check out this check-in area for Alaska airlines, the renovation was nicely done here:

Anyways where the giant Alaska logo was above, just to the left of that were the escalators to go to security, which was fairly quick since we had TSA-precheck. There was virtually no line for TSA pre-check so we were through that in a matter of a couple minutes! Here are some pictures after passing through security to airside

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American A321

So as you can see above, American still dumps some planes at terminal 6 when they run out of space at terminal 4, which is a far too frequent problem now. Anyways here is a United 787-8 which was about to head to Houston. IMG_0201

Below are some videos of the terminal if you wanted to watch them as it’s being renovated.

We were waiting at our gate to board the beautiful 737-900ER split scimitar, my first time on board one of those!

My did it look absolutely gorgeous!

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There was also a VERY new United 737-900 split scimitar that was delivered 2 months before this photo.

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Eventually, we began boarding down a short hall and almost made our way on the plane, but I had to stop again to admire the split scimitar design.

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Here’s a picture of the plane body as well before boarding, and on we go on board:

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Alaska Airlines

LAX-SEA Boeing 737-900ER

Photo belongs to One mile at a time (I forgot to photograph economy seats):

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So the seats were comfy and there was plenty of space for us to sit, being 5′ 10″. I loved the wing view every so much from the inside as I did from the outside:

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Wing view 737-900ER split scimitar

The view would only get better after departure. Speaking of which, the departure was on-time and we were out. After pushing out of Terminal 6, we taxied by terminals 5 and 4, then taxied passed all the even numbered Tom Bradley International Terminal gates, then to runway 24L where we would take off.

Here’s a photo taxing out of terminal 6:

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After taxing past the Tom Bradley even number gates

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The sky was brilliant at this time, but sadly I chose a seat on the right side, so that means we miss the sunset sky on the left the whole ride up to Seattle.

Below is an Air China 77W at terminal 2. Today, Air China operates out of Tom Bradley International Terminal.

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Air China 777-300ER

Eventually after reaching the runway, we departed and had some great views on the way out! IMG_0230

As soon as we crossed 10K feet, the seat belt sign turned off and the crew got right to work. I was feeling a little extra hungry from the day’s activities, so I knew was going to eat a little more than the usual peanuts that are served by them. I also decided to get their cheese, cracker, and fruit plate. I enjoyed that.

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Before opening the box, I took a picture of the outside sky, which looked nice with the split scimitar wingtip to compliment it.

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So the cheese served in this were French Brie, Gouda, and cheddar. They served apples and grapes on the sides. Oh, how can I forget the toffee? Overall, everything tasted very fresh (I’m talking about the fruits), and the cheese went well with the crackers. Even with altitude effects on taste, everything was still tasting good.

By now, the sun had basically gone:

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Soon enough, we were beginning to descent into Seattle, which initially looked dark, because of the cloud layer and reflection from the cabin lights, but the clouds slowly parted and we could see the city a little better:

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Descending into Seattle
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South Seattle
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Seattle harbor
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On downwind to SEA

We had some pretty nice views of downtown Seattle and the Space needle. The photos may be a little blurry, but it was amazing to see by naked eye:

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We touched down on runway 16R which was at an elevation. Seattle has 3 runways so we had to taxi over 16C and 16L to get back to the N gates which is one place where Alaska’s planes are parked

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taxing off runway 16L
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reaching gate
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parked at N16
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Alaska 737-400

So that is the end of my report for this leg. All in all, Alaska was great and I loved them this time around. I always thought they were one of the better airlines in the US despite not having a large market around the world in their metal. Other than economy, I find Alaska’s first class food to be a lot healthier than the artery-clogging food they give on American, United, and other US carriers. A lot of Alaska’s first class meals have some salad base, but the surrounding food is excellent. So one time I had a whole bunch of salad leaves and then there was some stuffed chicken that came with it and that was fantastic.

So Alaska does win my heart with food, even in economy compared to the US carriers. Yes, many of the the food items are the same between carriers, but Alaska’s food seems to be fresher. Also I find their crew to be more personable, which I find to be the case with airlines that are not over-the-top large like American, United, etc. So great job Alaska, hope to be back on with them very soon.

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