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

Introduction

Welcome to the 2nd and final segment of this quick series of 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. Having bought the tickets several months ahead, prices were reasonable at just under $300 roundtrip for First vs about $200 for Economy. 

After a packed weekend visiting friends in SF, it was time to head back home to Southern California. Oddly, for a change the weather was much nicer in San Francisco than back home in San Diego where we'd been getting some hardcore "May grey" that later turned into "June gloom".

Routing

Check-in & Lounge

Traffic was very light coming from the city on this early Sunday afternoon so we got to the airport in about 20 minutes. 

As we didn't have any bags to check and had checked in on the app, we bypassed the Alaska counters and headed straight to TSA Pre-check. 

The Pre-check security checkpoint is located on the upper level, whereas standard security is on the same departures level as the ticket counters. 

The line was long but moved quickly, it only took about 15 minutes to get through. 

Alaska Airlines operate their SFO hub from the Harvey Milk Terminal 1. 

It's a beautiful and modern terminal, especially by U.S. airport standards. There is a Priority Pass lounge in this terminal, though unsurprisingly there was a line to get in. 

My 6-year-old son is obsessed with Legos, so of course we had to make a pit stop at the Lego store!

We didn't even attempt to go to the Priority Pass lounge as we had access to the Alaska Lounge through our oneworld Emerald status with British Airways. 

As the lounge is located on the upper level, a lift or stairs will take you up from the lobby. 

A very friendly welcome from the Alaska lounge agent who just assumed our 6-year-old would be a guest…nope! He's got oneworld Emerald status on his own. Yes, we fly a lot (too much maybe 🤣). It's part of splitting our time between Europe and the U.S. and of course then there's holidays, hah.

The lounge was very quiet at this time of day. To the right of the check-in desks is a quiet zone, which was completely empty. Though our son is a properly well-behaved French kid, I wouldn't take him into a quiet section so we moved on. 

I'd never been to this lounge before as it's quite new, having opened in July of 2024, and was quite impressed with the spaciousness and design. 

There's a decent selection of food, including some hot options. 

Though not quite as nice as the Chase Sapphire lounge in SAN from the outbound flight, the food options are markedly better than a standard United Club or American Admirals Club. 

The lounge is very long, it just keeps going and going.

Just when you think you've gotten to the end…surprise, there's more! 

The bar area on the far side looked quite inviting. 

I loved that there are floor-to-ceiling windows running the length of the lounge with great tarmac views. 

Love all the widebody action at SFO—we definitely don't have anything close to this at SAN!

Well, that Aer Lingus A330 did not bring us the luck of the Irish as I received at notification that our flight was delayed by a half-hour. Like the outbound flight, I wasn't worried about it and always expect a bit of a delay on afternoon and evening flights. There were later flights, but I'd booked this one since the next day was a school/work day! So a bit of a delay wasn't going to have a huge impact. 

As the inbound flight landed only about 20 minutes behind schedule, I figured the delay would turn out to be shorter. 

Boarding

Shortly after our inbound flight arrived at the gate we left the lounge, which was a quick walk away. 

Wow, the gates in this new terminal are spacious and fancy! There's like a mini-lounge section with comfy mid-century-esque swivel chairs. 

This nice set up makes waiting for boarding more pleasant!

It seems there was no one in need of pre-boarding on this flight so once the Priority Group was called, we made our way down the jet bridge. 

There are 12 Domestic First class seats laid out in a 1-2 configuration over 4 rows on this Embraer E-175 operated by SkyWest. 

As usual, I booked seats in the last row. 

The Economy cabin is laid out in a standard 2-2 configuration. I've always been a fan of E-Jets for the comfortable configuration with no middle seats! E-Jets also tend to have wider seats than larger narrowbodies, at least in Economy. 

Something to be aware of…the overhead locker over row 4 C and D seats is tiny, so it could only fit one standard carry-on. The overheads on the 1-seater side are even smaller as they have less depth. They A-side bins are mostly useless, except for a jacket or handbag. 

Each seat in First class is equipped with a 110v Universal power outlet. 

Seat pitch is a standard 37" for Domestic First on an E-Jet. Not as nice as the 41" pitch on Alaska mainline, but plenty of space for a regional jet. 

We're definitely in an Alaska Airlines hub! Though, I've read that with recent additions at SAN, we'll end up with a larger hub at San Diego, which I was surprised about as SFO was already a hub for both Alaska and Virgin America before they merged. I've also heard a rumour that we'll be getting an Alaska Lounge in SAN–which would make sense if SAN ends up being busier than SFO in 2026! Woo Hoo, more lounge options for me! 🎉

In the seat-back pocket we find the usual informational pamphlet on drink options, Wi-Fi and in-flight Entertainment. 

The Flight

Boarding wrapped up fairly quickly on this full flight–one of the nice things about flying a regional jet is less passengers to board. 

We pushed back a few minutes earlier than the delayed departure time. 

Taxi time wasn't terribly long–about 20 minutes–I've had worse at SFO. 

We took off heading north with views of Oakland across the bay. 

Obviously San Diego is to the south so at some point, we'll have to make a turn southbound.

And here we go…Oh wow! I was not expecting these amazing views! We made our turn just south of downtown–I'd picked the "good" side for views without knowing it. 

As many times as I've flown in and out of SFO over the years, I'd never seen the Golden Gate from the air before! The closest I'd been is reading NGO85's beautiful Flight-Reports!

Wow! What an absolute treat!

A San Francisco treat, even! Yes, that's a Rice-a-Roni joke for fellow Millennials 🤣

Once we were heading south we just flew along the coast line so it was ocean views for most of the rest of the flight.

Let's check out the Wi-Fi and streaming entertainment. 

The Wi-Fi on the Embraer fleet is not as good as on mainline–it only supports light browsing and messaging, no video streaming (at least without major buffering). 

Eh, I might as well get my free Wi-Fi with T-Mo even though it barely works. 

While the Wi-Fi is not as robust as on mainline Alaska aircraft, the streaming IFE is exactly the same. There is a huge library of content streamed to personal devices including hundreds of movies, TV shows, documentaries, music, and children's content. 

The in-flight service was the same as on the Mainline flight up with a choice of sweet or salty items from the snack basket and a choice of the full bar–I had an Espresso Martini. The friendly cabin crew encouraged passengers to take more than one item from the snack basket. 

We all kept ourselves entertained on this short flight. 

The Wi-Fi was just about fast enough to follow our flight on Flightradar24. There is a rudimentary map on the IFE/Wi-Fi portal, but this is obviously better. 

As SF and SD had apparently swapped weather this spring, we landed on a gloomy and cold evening with views of Balboa Park from the right side. 

Just right above the buildings in Little Italy.

In the end, we arrived at the gate only a little over 10 minutes behind schedule.

Thanks for reading!