Flight routing
- 1
- 2
- 3San José (SJC) - Puerto Vallarta (PVR)
A visual of this entire trip's journey:
Total distance flown will be 2567 mi / 4132 km
This trip report's flight route between San José and Puerto Vallarta will take 3hr at distance of 1,524mi/2,453km
introduction
Welcome everyone to another trip report! This is my last flight of three that I took with AS back in May from Salt Lake City to Puerto Vallarta where I had two layovers, one in San Diego and another in San Jose where I'm starting this trip report off. This would be my first time flying AS mainline as I've only previously had experience flying 4 regional AS flights operated by SkyWest. This will give me a chance to try out there product and get a first hand experience of AS hospitality and comparing them to the likes of airlines I usually frequently fly with like AA or DL.
Let's get started now! After spending a rather short overnight layover at SJC airport I woke up from my alarm clock that I had set a few hours before departure and made my way to find my gate.
This morning's departure board. My flight is AS 1448 which shows that it's on time.
Some information about my plane:
Flight number: AS 1448
Aircraft: Boeing 737-890
Registration: N530AS
Delivered: April 15, 2010
Age: 13.7 years
Here's a view of my 737 that will be taking me down to Mexico this morning. She is configured in 12 First class, 30 Premium class and 117 Main cabin seats for a total capacity of 159 seats.
A view of the grate area before the herd of people came in.
Boarding
Boarding soon was announced on time and I boarded along with group D.
My seat for the next 3 hours, 32F at the very last row of the plane.
I was quickly disappointed when I looked out the window and noticed how dirty it was. This made it a challenge appreciating the views from the outside.
Legroom was very good for standard economy. These seats offer 31" of pitch, I'm 5'9" or 176cm for reference.
I was lucky and had the middle seat unoccupied which made it feel a bit more roomier. Since I was the first to arrive at my row I got dibs on placing my book bag under the middle seat's space to make room for my legs ?.
Boarding is complete and today's flight load would be around 98% full. From the looks of it my middle empty seat was the only empty seat on the flight.
Southwest B737-700 departing for Phoenix. Flight time: 1h 31m
Alaska B737-800 arriving on a red eye flight from Honolulu. Flight time: 4h 36m
Next to us is an Alaska E175 departing for San Diego. Flight time 1h 5m
pushback/takeoff
We pushed back 3 minutes ahead of schedule.
Lined up on runway 30R for takeoff.
Until next time San Jose!
After flying through the clouds we finally broke into blue skies.
tray table/seat back contents
They tray table is a good size and extendable.
Inflight entertainment guide.
Selection of beverages both complimentary and for purchase.
Safety card.
Worth noting that there is individual USB and universal power outlets located at each seat.
inflight service
About 40 minutes into flight the FA's sprung into the cabin to conduct the drinks and snacks service.
First followed the snack cart…
Followed by the drink cart.
For snack they gave out these butter pretzels and for drinks I kindly requested for a coffee and orange juice.
I don't care what FA's say about not drinking coffee on an airplane, I still think is really good ?.
Cheers for more travel!
These pretezels were very tasty.
Flying over northern Baja California.
Flying over The Gulf of California.
Archangel Island
inflight entertainment
To make up not offering PTV's onboard, Alaska does makeup for this for having a great in-flight entertainment offering which you can easily access on your own device. Including a very good interactive map, as well as a great selection of movies and TV shows to keep you entertained on any length flight.
Pre-arrival service
About an hour before arrival, to my surprise AS actually gave out pre-arrival drinks on a 3 hour flight which was surprising for a US legacy carrier. Other airlines for sure like AA or UA wouldn't have done this not even on a 4hr flight from my experience. For my dink of choice I went for a coke.
Sitting in the last row I could easily see the horizontal stabilizer.
Shortly after the service, the FA's handed out these custom declaration forms that needed to be filled out.
Shortly after the FA's began preparing cabin for landing.
initial descent
La Peñita de Jaltemba
landing/taxi
Lining up to land on runway 22.
Welcome to Puerto Vallarta! ??
We arrived at the gate 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
Deplaning
Being literally at the back of the plane I had to wait a good 10 minutes or so before I was able to get up and head out of the plane.
Another look at our 737.
One last look at our aircraft as we made our way to immigration. Thanks for the safe ride!
This concludes the trip report, thanks for reading!
These older cabins are definitely due for a refresh! When they were firs installed a decade ago, they were very modern and Alaska were one of the first major carriers to have USB and AC power at every seat and all aircraft. Luckily, all 737s are due to receive the new post-merger cabins in the next few years. It's kinda of a shame, and a waste of money, that they first concentrated on updating the ex-Virgin A32S fleet with the new cabins, and then ended up getting rid of all of them so it's like the new cabins, which have been around for years, almost never existed since they're only on the small MAX fleet and a handful of 739s and 1 or 2 738s.
2 bev services on a 3h flight definitely sets AS above the rest. They even do 3 services on 5h transcons, while the US3 struggle to do 2 on similar flights.
Thanks for sharing!