Review of Southwest Airlines flight from San Francisco to San Diego in Economy

A visual of my entire domestic itinerary from SFO to SLC via SAN which would cover a total distance of 1,070mi/1,722km. This trip report will cover the 1h journey between SFO to SAN.

introduction

Welcome to another trip report!
Today I'll be starting off my journey to my hometown of Salt Lake City from here in San Francisco. I could of flown a nonstop with DL,UA or AS however I saw a very enticing offer using rapid reward points (which I had a bit left over) between the two cities and since SW is my second most favorite US carrier (behind DL) I chose to take them for my journey home even though it was not a nonstop flight. When it came to flight options there was none and the only one that was on offer was a stop over in San Diego which I did not mind taking. Funny enough just 5 months prior I took this exact itinerary but with Alaska (SFO-SAN here, SAN-SLC here) both operated by Skywest and on ERJ175s. This will be a great opportunity to compare both flight products. Let's continue on with the report ;). 
Here we start at terminal 1 at SFO where Southwest operates out of.

check-in

It was quite deserted when I arrived and I headed to the self kiosks to print both my boarding passes and luggage tag.

Check-in process was smooth and I had everything done in no more then 5 minutes. Now off to security control.

Security was ok but the line was backed up and took about 30 minutes to finally get airside.

The flight board; today's flight to San Diego will be WN 1360 with a scheduled 9:50am departure.

Came across a cool display explaining El Dia de Los Muertos which was cool to see.

I forgot how much I like terminal 1 here at SFO. It's bright, open, clean and has lots of comfortable seat options by the gate areas. Since I have a few hours before boarding would start, I decided to do some early morning plane spotting 😉.

plane spotting

Here we have a Hawaiian Airbus A330-200 departing for Honolulu (HNL); flight time: 4h 48m. This route is now operated by their new B787-9 Dreamliners.

WestJet B737-700 departing for Calgary (YYC); flight time: 2h 27m. I actually had the chance to fly with them back in 2019 on this exact route which was a fun experience. 

Alaska Airlines B737-900(ER) departing for Austin (AUS); flight time: 2h 57m

Boeing 737 MAX 9 (San Francisco Giants Livery) departing for Boston (BOS); flight time: 4h 51m

I'm not sure what's going on here but I hope that's greywater 😅.

Delta Air Lines B757-200 flying across the country for New York (JFK); flight time: 4h 52m

United Airlines B737 MAX 9 departing for San Diego (SAN); flight time: 1h 9m

Parallel takeoff of two Alaska B737-900(ER)s departing for Seattle (farthest back) and San Jose del Cabo.

Air Canada B737 MAX 8 departing for Vancouver (YVR); flight time: 2h 

EVA Air B777-300(ER)

Alaska SkyWest Embraer E175LR departing for Santa Ana (SNA); flight time: 1h 7m

my aircraft

Here comes my B737 arriving from Las Vegas that'll be taking me down the coast to San Diego this morning.

This B737 is configured in an all economy class layout with 143 seats. I will ultimately be sitting in the back in seat 20A. Seat map courtesy of aerolopa.

Some information about my plane:
Flight number: SW 1360 
Aircraft: Boeing 737-7H4
Registration: N226WN
Delivered: November 30, 2005 
Age: 18 years (at time of flight)

Our departure gate for today's flight would be B12

boarding

Before I knew it boarding soon began once the Las Vegas passengers deplaned. Southwest is quite known for also having some of the quickest turnarounds in the industry with the average being 35 minutes. 

At check-in I was assigned position B18 to board. Southwest is famous for its open seating policy which I love and hate 😅. Usually when you check-in right at the 24h mark (like I do normally) I would get a boarding position in the A group. However for this flight and the next I was assigned in group B for some reason even though I checked in right at the 24h mark. I guess it doesn't guarantee but it has worked like that for me for several years. Not that it's bad or anything but it's usually harder to find a good seat (especially one with good window alignment the further back you are assigned to board. Each letter group has 60 positions so I'm estimating that I'll be the 78th person to board the plane, not counting pre boards. 

seat

As I boarded I quickly settled for seat 20A.

Great wing view if I may say so myself 😅. In the past I always forgot that when heading to SAN you have to sit on the left side to see the city skyline on approach for landing. So I was excited that I'll finally get a chance to see it or so I thought 😂.

Legroom was pretty good! These seats on Southwest 737-700s offer 31" of pitch, an inch more then what 'legacy airline' AA offers.

Just making sure that it's a 737-700 😉.

Boarding is complete and I was so happy to have the entire row to myself which is usually a rarity now in days. 

This morning's flight load down to SAN was light at around 50%.

A look at the overhead panel which features a reading light, FA call button and individual air vents which is very well appreciated.

Pushback

We pushed back right on time.

Looks like today will be an absolutely perfect morning to be flying!

takeoff runway on 1l

Until next time SF!

We were treated to an amazing view overlooking SFO international airport.

Once we passed through 10,000ft the FA's sprung into the cabin and with their little clip boards began taking drink orders.

tray table / seat back contents

Here's a look at the tray table which is of standard size and extendable.

At least it was pretty clean. 

Next let's take a look at the seat back contents.
First we have the inflight drink menu.

SW complimentary soft drink menu is pretty similar to all other airlines offerings with the exception of their hot chocolate which is what I always go for when flying SW 😉. I also just noticed that all alcoholic beverages are much cheaper at 6-7 USD each whereas DL, AS & AA charge upwards of 10-11 USD for these same beverages.

The typical safety card.

And lastly the airsickness bag.

inflight entertainment

Although SW only offer IFE through your own device, it was quite nice and easy to connect.

There was plenty of movies, tv shows, live tv channels and even music to choose from. I personally found more entertainment options on here than what AA offers on my previous experience flying them domestically. I wished this was a longer flight so I could've taken the opportunity to enjoy some movies.

The absolute favorite part for me was actually the interactive flight map which was very nice and detailed. Again even AA lacks this feature which is mind boggling for the world's largest airline not to have in their domestic IFE system. 

inflight service

About 30 minutes into flight, the FA's brought out the trays with everyones drink order and I got my hot chocolate. I don't normally drink hot chocolate but for some reason this drink tastes x5 better at 35,000ft 😅.

Shortly after another FA came through the cabin offering everyone these tasty savory snacks.

Overall this was very good service for a 1h flight 👍🏻.

At one point I got up to stretch out and take a stroll through the cabin. 

Flying over the city of San Fernando, just north of Los Angeles.

initial descent

We began our initial descent as we were flying over Los Angeles.

Downtown LA.

Long Beach Airport (LGB)

The FA's began preparing cabin for landing.

The weather began to dramatically change the closer we got to San Diego.

We spent roughly about 10-15 minutes circling out in the Pacific for the weather to get better as San Diego was shrouded in low cloud cover.

landing runway 9

Eventually we got clearance to begin our descent into San Diego. 

To my luck we would be landing on the opposite side (runway 9) rather then the usual approach are into SAN. When I finally remember to sit on the right side, we don't get any city views upon landing 😂.

Welcome to San Diego!

After we exited the runway, we backtracked on the taxiway and held short there for about 15 minutes along with a UA 737-800 as aircraft were landing before we could safely cross the runway.

arrival at gate

We arrived at our gate 20 minutes behind schedule.

This concludes the trip report, thanks for reading!