Review of Horizon Air flight from Portland to San Jose in Economy

QX - Horizon Air

Flight taken on 02 January 2020

QX2042

Portland San Jose

PDX

SJC

06:05 01h 54m 07:59

Model Embraer E-175

Class Economy

Seat 16D

Hello!
On January 2, 2020, I got to visit my hometown in California. I flew from Portland (PDX/KPDX) to San Jose (SJC/KSJC) onboard Alaska Horizon. I was on AS2042/QX2042 operated by N650QX. This was my second time onboard a Horizon E75L and one of the many times I landed at San Jose International Airport. I flew down to San Jose to visit friends I haven't seen in 5 months ever since my move up to Washington.

I don't have many pictures of this flight due to the flight being in the early morning.

Gates:
Departed Gate C23A
Arrived Gate 18

Route: MINNE5 HISKU Q5 HUPTU CHBLI BRIXX2

Flight routing

Here is a blurry shot of the tail number (N650QX) just as I was about to board the airplane. Because of our gate position at the airport, we had to board the airplane from outside rather than a jet bridge.

Flight attendants service during cruise. I got an apple juice and Biscoff cookies.

This was during descent into San Jose.

Here is another picture during descent. Here, we can see the cities of the Bay Area.

This was after landing in San Jose. We parked at Gate 18. We landed at SJC early but we were stuck on the plane at the gate for about 10 minutes due to a fire alarm going off in Terminal B. I couldn't hear the alarm but I did see the flashing strobes inside.

After the all-clear was given for the fire alarm that went off, we were able to deplane. This picture was taken shortly after I got into the terminal.

Here is a picture of the terminal and it shows how crowded SJC can get. At busier times, the airport can be even more crowded. Last year in 2019, SJC had a record 15.7 million passengers surpassing Oakland Airport and becoming the second largest airport in the CA Bay Area. This airport is one of the fastest growing airports in the United States and airport officials are doing everything as quickly as they can to better handle the increasing number of passengers.

Shortly after leaving the secured area, I took this picture at baggage claim. Since this was on January 2, the Christmas tree was still there.

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Product ratings

Airline

Horizon Air 7.8

Cabin10.0 / 10
Cabin crew10.0 / 10
Entertainment/wifi3.0 / 10
Meal/catering8.0 / 10

Departure airport

Portland - PDX8.6

Efficiency8.5 / 10
Access10.0 / 10
Services9.0 / 10
Cleanliness7.0 / 10

Arrival Airport

San Jose - SJC9.2

Efficiency7.0 / 10
Access10.0 / 10
Services10.0 / 10
Cleanliness10.0 / 10

Conclusion

In the end, I really enjoyed the flight. It was my first time flying after 5 months and everything was carried out pretty smoothly. The biggest problem I had on that flight was the WiFi. I purchased the WiFi and while using it, it disconnected me pretty often. I would have to constantly go into settings and manually connect my iPad whenever the WiFi decided to disconnect. Another problem was that we arrived 18 minutes early (7:41 AM PDT or 1541Z), but we were stuck on the airplane after arriving at Gate 18 due to a fire alarm that had been triggered in our terminal. We sat on the airplane doing nothing for 10 minutes until it was given the all-clear. Overall, I would give this flight an 8.5/10.