Avis du vol entre San Diego et San Francisco en classe Domestic First avec Alaska Airlines

Introduction

Welcome to this short series of quick reviews on Alaska Airlines' intra-California services in Domestic First class. For a weekend in San Francisco there were three carriers to chose from.

Alaska, United, and Southwest airlines all offer scheduled flights between San Diego and San Francisco, though as Alaska is my preferred carrier for domestic travel, it wasn't a difficult choice, especially as pricing was decent. Having bought the tickets several months ahead, prices were reasonable at just under $300 roundtrip for First vs about $200 for Economy. 

Routing

Check-in & Lounge

We arrived at SAN Terminal 2 about two and a half hours prior to departure. As we'd checked in on the Alaska app and didn't have any bags to check for this quick weekend, we headed straight to TSA Pre-check and then to the new-ish Chase Sapphire lounge, which had opened a few months earlier in December 2024. 

I've said it before but it's been so nice to finally have a decent lounge in San Diego. Unsurprisingly, it can get busy at peak times, especially as there are very few lounge options at SAN. Luckily, we were there during the late afternoon lull, so there was no wait to enter. 

The lounge is large, at least by San Diego airline lounge standards, and offers several different seating areas and even a children's playroom. 

We had no issues finding seating during this slower time

There is a self-serve buffet with some rather good fresh options including several hot dishes, but you can also order from menus accessed through QR codes at each table in the lounge. 

Some nice options including several Mexican dishes, because of course, it's San Diego! 

You can also order drinks from the menu. There are more options if you go to the bar physically, but the essentials are there. I especially liked that they had a Rosé from Provence. 

Not being particularly hungry so early, we just got a few items from the self-serve buffet, but did order some drinks for the adults. 

While sitting in the lounge I got a notification that the flight was running about 20 minutes behind schedule–no big deal. I always expect at least a small delay on late afternoon and evening flights as there have been plenty of opportunities throughout an aircraft's flights during the day to accumulate delays by the time evening comes around. 

As the sun got lower in the sky, staff opened the curtains giving us a lot of natural light and nice tarmac views. 

Boarding

Being the aviation nerd that I am, of course I followed our inbound aircraft on FlightRadar24.

Once it arrived at the gate, we began to make our way to the gate.

The Chase Sapphire lounge is on the opposite side of the terminal from the Alaska gates, so it's a good 5-10 minute walk depending on your speed and which gate you're heading to. 

Our flight was out of gate 22, which is one of the most cramped and crowded gates right next to the security checkpoint. 

Shortly after arriving at the gate, general boarding began with the Priority Boarding group following pre-boarding. The Priority group is comprised of First class and Alaska MVP Gold 100K members (other oneworld Emerald and Sapphire members board with Group A). 

Unsurprisingly, this older 737-800 was equipped with old cabins. Though Alaska announced new cabins for 737-800s back in 2023 to enter service in late 2024, the first few retrofitted frames just began flying in June of 2025. Note that I'm not speaking about the 3 of 4 738s with "Refreshed" cabins, which essentially only got new seat covers and bulkheads, but the new cabins with 4 rows of First class instead of 3 and full leg-rests like on the newest 737 MAXes.

Those old bulkhead designs don't help the cabins look more modern. 

Though the seats are over a decade old, they were very modern at the time they were installed with individual 110v universal power outlets and USB ports at every seat in both First and Economy. 

Legroom is great with Alaska's best-in-the-U.S. Domestic First seat pitch of 41 inches

All Alaska airlines aircraft are equipped with in-flight Wi-Fi and streaming entertainment to personal devices, both of which are availabel from gate-to-gate. 

While Wi-Fi is only $8, I get free access as a T-Mobile customers. 

There's a very rudimentary flight map on the Wi-Fi / IFE portal.

I much prefer to just use FR24 with the free Wi-Fi

The Flight

Boarding wrapped up rather quickly, but we ended up pushing back later than planned due to ATC delays I believe. 

Once in the air, it's a quick 1h flight. Flight attendants were up and in the cabin as soon as we reached 10,000ft in altitude. The very friendly crew apologised for the lack of pre-departure drink service due to the delay and quick turnaround. 

When I smelt coffee brewing it made me want a cup, but it was Friday evening so I asked for it with some Irish cream 😉

There is no meal service on such short flights, of course, but there is a decent choice of salty or sweet snack options from the snack basket. 

Soon enough we were making our descent over the lights of the Bay Area. 

Despite the delay out of SAN, we only landed about 23 minutes behind schedule. 

Parking next to a 737 MAX 8

Alaska operate their SFO hub out of the recently renovated Harvey Milk Terminal 1

As we didn't have any checked bags we caught a Lyft and were downtown in our room at the InterContinental barely 45 minutes after pulling in to the gate!