I just realized that I never put together a trip report for my trip to the Pacific Northwest last week. I’m probably going to be doing fewer of these in the future or at least de-emphasizing them, but I haven’t decided how I’m going to treat that yet. Do you guys like these? Let me know in the comments.

I bought this ticket about 2 months in advance for about $310 (with a discount coupon I found online). The plan was the fly up to Seattle, take the Boeing tour at Everett, and then go down to Portland where I’d visit family and then fly home.

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September 12, 2008
Alaska #547 Lv Long Beach (LGB) 7a Arr Seattle/Tacoma (SEA) 957a
LGB: Gate 22, Runway 30, Dept OT
SEA: Gate N8, Runway 34C, Arr ~20m Early
Aircraft: N796AS, Boeing 737-490, Eskimo, ~75% Full
Seat: 2F
Flight Time: 2h22m

I didn’t realize that Alaska gives its elite members upgrades that they can hand out to friends. I mentioned to a friend of mine that I was flying Alaska and he offered them up. Very cool. So I was confirmed in First long before the flight.

Since I was flying out of Long Beach, it was the usual routine of leaving home one hour before departure. Security took 15 minutes to clear, and once I got to the gate, I just walked right onboard.

There was a mini bottle of water at my seat, and the flight attendant came by and told us that breakfast would be a danish and, I think, some yogurt. It wasn’t much, but who was I to complain?

We took off into the deep marine layer and soon enough we were up in the morning sun on our way to Seattle. The food was fine, and I decided to have a mimosa to start the vacation right. Looking around, I could see these seats were very well worn, to say the least. They could probably use an upgrade themselves.

It was a nice smooth flight up north and we had great views of Mt St Helens and Mt Rainier on our way in.

They parked us at the remote gates which were pretty sparsely populated when I arrived. I took the train back to the terminal, and then I was on my way. Unfortunately, the Boeing strike meant that there was a completely lame bus ride in place of the actual tour (though I did get to see the first V Australia 777 on the flight line). That was the only real disappointment of the trip.

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September 14, 2008
Alaska #588 Lv Portland (PDX) 430p Arr Orange County (SNA) 652p
PDX: Gate C1, Runway 28L, Dept ~15m Late
SNA: Gate 10, Runway 19R, Arr ~5m Late
Aircraft: N609AS, Boeing 737-790, Eskimo, ~95% Full
Seat: 2F
Flight Time: 1h54m

After a great weekend in Portland with family, I left them and hopped on the MAX train to the airport. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to find an afternoon flight time back home. Strangely, there are no flights to LAX leaving between 2 and 7 and you can’t fly nonstop to Long Beach. So, I took the 430p flight down to Orange County.

As I mentioned before, the Portland airport is a great one. I wandered around awhile and then came to the close-in gate for boarding. Once we were all boarded up, I got a little nervous when I saw the door staying open and the flight attendants milling around. Sure enough, the captain came on and said we’d be delayed.

Apparently the first officer had car problems and had to take the bus. He was on his way, and he hoped it wouldn’t make us more than 15 minutes late. Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. But sure enough, he walked in, got a small of a round of applause, and then we were soon on our way.

Right after departure, the very friendly flight attendant came by and took drink orders. I had the first of three scotches (might as well), and settled back for the afternoon ride home. I was told by the gate agent that we only had a snack in First, but sure enough we had a meal. It had a decent salad with lasagna that was slightly hard around the edges (but still not bad). There was also a very soggy breadstick. I started talking to the guy next to me, and we discussed how it was probably about a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Oh yeah, and I can’t forget that to this day, Alaska continues to include a prayer card on every tray table that it provides. I find this to be very strange, but I suppose they’re welcome to do whatever they and their shareholders want.

The rest of the flight was nice and smooth with excellent service from up front. We landed just a little bit late, and I was on my way home in no time.

My fiancée flew to Orlando again yesterday, so I was hoping to have some more great stories like the infamous dinner roll debacle or the more recent gum incident, but alas, she flew Delta. Instead of problems, she had great service, in-seat video, tasty buy-on-board food, and nothing to complain about. Good for her, but a bummer for the blog. So, let’s talk about Continental instead.

On September 5, Continental announced a handful of changes, including the elimination of the 500 minimum OnePass miles on all flights. Yesterday, less than three weeks later, that was reversed for elite members in the OnePass program. Quick reversals like these really make me wonder who is making these decisions over there.

The airline, always a good friend of FlyerTalk, actually announced the restoration of the 500 mile minimum in a FlyerTalk thread. Scott O’Leary, Managing Director, Customer Experience said:

Hi Everyone, earlier this month we announced our 2009 OnePass changes, and suffice to say after the hundreds of posts and messages received here at headquarters, it was clear that the elimination of the 500-mile minimum was the most impactful to many of you. Especially those of you who are Elite members.

What happened in the last two weeks to change their mind? US Airways was the first one to announce the elimination of the mileage minimum and the reaction was extremely negative. Did Continental not notice this reaction back then? Did they think it would somehow be different when they tried it?

I suppose we should just be happy that they actually are listening to customers and making changes, but I find it hard to believe they didn’t see this one coming.

I’m sure I’ll get another comment saying that I’m obsessed with Alitalia, and you know what? It’s true. This is far more entertaining than any soap opera, but there is important information to be had here. Do NOT book any flights on this airline.

As predicted, the unions couldn’t quite figure out that without a reduction in force, they’ll all be jobless, so they marched forward in protest. This is actually a photo from a union rally with what I’d like to think was going through their heads at the time.

Will this really be the end? Of course not. Sure they may shut down the airline, but they’ll just resurrect it again without all that debt and without those insane union members who have sealed their fates through their stubborn behavior. They’ll probably give it a fancy new name, just like in Greece where Olympic is being shut down. But don’t worry. They’ll still have all the same underlying problems to keep us entertained.
[Original Photo: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters]

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Those of you who live in Canada got a nice dose of gold star-worthy airline goodness yesterday when Air Canada announced it was rolling back some fees and other airlines followed with reductions of their own. Fuel prices are down, so it’s always nice to see an airline actually repeal something that it had previously said was put in place because of high fuel prices. Something tells me we won’t see that happening here in the US very often, if at all.

Let’s get a little more specific here. Air Canada announced that it would stop charging the $25 second bag fee that it put into place in May due to high fuel costs. It was also announced that the fuel surcharges would be rolled into the base fare going forward. Lastly, the airline said that excess bag fees would be simplified to be a flat $75 per piece for oversized or overweight (or both) and $100 per excess bag (which would not require additional payment if it was oversize or overweight). This is a reduction from the current $100 fee for each limit that is violated. (This is confusing. Get the details here.)

If that wasn’t enough to make the Canadians happy, WestJet (and Porter) decided to one-up Air Canada by eliminating their fuel surcharges altogether. WestJet said it best . . . “WestJet eliminates fuel surcharge – because we said we would.”

Well, how’s that for a round of good news? I have to say that it’s rare we see several airlines actually keep their word here. I know that some airlines institute these baggage fees because they want to change their business model to a more a la carte-style. That’s fine, and I wouldn’t expect those to change. But for those airlines that make changes while blaming high fuel prices, they really should act responsibly and reduce those fees when oil prices come back down. Unfortunately, most of them won’t, but kudos are certainly due to the Canadians.