I wrote about the advantages of this move for the customer over at Conde Nast last week as part of a photo slideshow. But there are advantages beyond the customer as well.

Alaska now has the benefit of a more stable operation. With preferential use gates, it is not at the whim of other airlines any longer, and it has a lot more gates that it can utilize. Even better for Alaska, it has been able to consolidate its employee groups in one big place beneath the departure level in the concourse. In other words, it will be a lot easier for Alaska to operate at LAX now. And yes, it will mean easier customs and immigration processing, better waiting areas, and easier connections to major partner Delta for customers.

It may have cost $238 million to get this done, but the benefit to travelers and to the airline is readily apparent. This is the kind of project I like to see: smart, cost effective use of resources to make a dramatic improvement in how things work.

In the Trenches: Our Money Back Guarantee – Intuit Small Business Blog
It’s a rare occurrence, but every so often we get a client who invokes our moneyback guarantee. In some cases, it makes me want to rethink the proposition completely.

I showed up at what looked like a fortress just before noon. Behind big gates with strict security, I entered the new LAX kitchen for LSG Sky Chefs. LSG handles the provisioning for Alaska in every one of its stations except for Newark and in the Hawaiian Islands. (There is no LSG kitchen at Newark.)

I was taken up into a big room where we would do our tasting. There were three faces I recognized – Bobbie Egan, Media Relations Manager was there as were Kirsten Robinett, Product Manager of Onboard Food & Beverage and Lisa Luchau, Director of Onboard Food & Beverage. Beyond them, there were several other people in the room working feverishly. Was this all done for me? Thankfully, no.

Alaska does this regularly to make sure everything is up to snuff. There are monthly menu tastings in Seattle, quarterly kitchen audits in the hubs, and annual audits in the other kitchens around the system. How Kirsten and Lisa don’t weigh 700 pounds is beyond me, because it seems that their job is to constantly eat, even if it is in very small portions.

The kitchen audits aren’t just about tasting food, however. They go to the airport and observe the operation. Is the food being delivered to the aircraft properly? Are the carts organized correctly? Are all the temperatures right? Is the recycling collected on board actually being recycled? It’s a very thorough process. As part of this, they do a menu tasting, and that’s where I got to participate.

Along the wall, every dish prepared by the LA kitchen was set up as it should be presented on the airplane. Each year, Alaska puts together a meal plan that will start in April and go for a year. Meals are rotated monthly but will likely pop up four times during the year thanks to regular rotation. I say “likely” because some get pulled out if the feedback is too negative. One was the portobello mushroom sandwich. Apparently, the team loved it and so did many passengers, but it didn’t go over well with everyone. It was on thin ice.

The executives have a weekly team lunch. It’s a regular meeting but it’s catered with food served on the airplane. (Most of the time, it’s with buy on board options from coach, but sometimes it’s the First Class food.) Once, they served the portobello mushroom and the word came down quickly – it had to be ditched.

Some foods, however, make it beyond the one year mark. The Angus cheeseburger, for example, has survived year in and year out as one of the most popular choices. Still, they’re careful to rotate it out so as not to have it wear out its welcome. It just keeps coming back.

While standing at the long table, I realized just what kind of attention to detail you need to have in this job. Kirsten was quick to notice that the butter was served in a little plastic case. That shouldn’t be that way in First Class, she noted. As we moved down the table, they pulled out a cheeseburger to show me just how much effort goes into these things. The cheese is folded in half because it melts better that way. It’s also placed upside down in the bun so it’s pulled out more easily by the traveler. It’s the little things . . . .

We looked at the four snack boxes that are shelf-stable. There’s a new kids box that they’ve been trying out – it’s been getting rave reviews. There’s also a vegan snack box, a deli box, and a vegetarian one. These look just like any other snack box but the products inside are different. There’s a heavy emphasis on using items from the Pacific Northwest. The discussion kept coming back to Beecher’s Cheese as an example – it’s a cheese that until recently was only made in Seattle.

We ended up sitting at a table and the tastings began. All food is served from a galley cart and on to Alaska’s usual plates. The silverware is the same too, because they need to make sure that airplane knives can cut adequately through the items. Everything has to be as close as possible to the actual situation on the plane.

We started off small, eating bits and pieces. But that was before I got to this great pork dish with meat falling off the bone. I, um, ate a lot of that one.

I ate a lot of everything after that, in fact, but I was most interested in seeing how the team reacted during the tasting. Kirsten was a little upset about a croissant being used by the LA kitchen. It was apparently bigger than what they use in most places so there wasn’t enough chicken to fill it.

Everything is measured out carefully and there’s even a scale at the table if she thinks something is off. She also focused on the bread for the Italian baguette. It wasn’t quite what she wanted it to be.

The process of trying to get food to be somewhat standardized throughout an airline’s route network is daunting, because you can’t source everything the same in every city. But every cart on the airplane has a card that shows in color what each dish should look like when given to the traveler. That helps the flight attendants with standardization, but you can never guarantee perfection.

It sounds like nothing is quite as difficult as the Hawaiian Islands. In Lihue, most airlines just cater on the mainland for the roundtrip, so there weren’t any real catering options. Alaska found a local restaurant, bought a trailer, and has that company do the catering for the flights from Lihue.

In the end, I walked away with a real appreciation for how much effort goes into the food experience from the airline perspective. Now that Alaska has been able to successfully create a buy on board program with fresh food, it has the ability to invest even more into the program.

The program had actually started becoming attractive to me before this move, but this just makes it even better. With my “somewhat frequent but not too frequent” travel schedule (one that I assume many of you share), this program really hits a sweet spot for me. But before we get into that, let’s talk about what’s happening. The following benefits will be available to elite members in each program when flying the other airline.

• Priority check-in
• Priority security lines
• Priority boarding
• Preferred seating
• Two free checked bags domestically
• Elite qualifying miles (this isn’t new)

This might not sound like anything special, right? I mean, American has these benefits with its oneworld partners. Most airlines have some sort of program like this within their alliances. It doesn’t even have reciprocal upgrades, so who cares?

I do. And that’s because Alaska has done something that’s very difficult to do. It has cultivated very close partnerships with arch rivals.

Alaska is already closely tied with Delta. Mileage Plan elite members earn elite qualifying miles and they get priority boarding, priority security, priority seats, and two free checked bags on Delta. They even get free upgrades on the day of departure on Delta, if available. Now similar (though not quite as robust) benefits are exchanged with American as well.

If I tried to consolidate all my paid flying in a year on one airline, I would probably qualify for silver status. But I don’t like to fly one airline. It’s rare that one airline is going to provide me with the best option every time. Even if I did squeak out elite status, I would just be an entry level elite so I wouldn’t be looking at a lot of upgrade opportunities. It would really just get me priority screening/check in/boarding and free bags, something that might become much more handy with a kid on the way.

And that’s why I find myself drawn to Alaska. First off, I like the airline. It’s a nice airline to fly with a sharp management team that has created a great business. The biggest problem is that Alaska doesn’t fly very many places. It’s pretty much up and down the west coast for me being based near LA. But when you throw in Delta and American, then it provides a ton of opportunities.

Though I don’t like consolidating my travel with one airline, there’s a better chance of me flying American, Delta, and Alaska enough in a year to get 25,000 miles than with any other program. (And if I did fly all on Alaska, I would only need 20,000 miles for elite status. It’s only 25,000 when including partner airline travel.)

It also opens up a lot of redemption opportunities. Alaska is partners with a good number of oneworld and Skyteam airlines, including Qantas, British Airways, Air France/KLM, Korean, etc. So there are some great ways to spend miles.

What do I lose by not earning on Delta? Not much. I mean, I don’t get upgrades in advance, but I probably wouldn’t get those anyway with lowly status. I also lose out on redeeming for standard awards on Delta itself. That’s ok, because those are usually overpriced anyway. I’m not a fan of Skypesos. (If you haven’t seen it, View From the Wing has a great overview of the program and how to make it work for you.)

The same goes for American, though the AAdvantage program is much more flexible for redemptions. So there is a bit more of a loss there. But it’s not a huge loss for me.

The main point is that I can quite possibly qualify for elite status on an airline without having to change my behavior much. I don’t live for elite status, but if I can earn it without a ton of effort, it will save me from having to pay for checked bags. So as a friend of mine who just made the same decision up in the Bay Area said, I’m going all-in.

In the past, I’ve just earned either Delta or American miles when I’ve flow Alaska, but on my last trip, I signed up for a Mileage Plan account and even earned Alaska miles when I flew Delta. I’m going to stick with that plan next year and see where it gets me. I’m also probably going to sign up for a Mileage Plan credit card, though I haven’t gotten around to doing it yet. Seems like a good move for someone like me.

[Original photo via Flickr user Bucajack/CC SA 2.0]

The headquarters itself really seems fitting for Alaska. It’s an unassuming building in a business area just south of the airport. The main entrance is just a tiny little room with a receptionist there waiting to help. Apparently there used to be a different entrance, but security procedures in recent years required them to lock it down in to this “cozy” spot.

The building is actually two buildings brought together by a long corridor (with awesomely large models of airplanes). The buildings use a very open floor plan with everything facing a large atrium in the middle of each – both have fountains that provide nice soothing background noise while you work. There are plenty of skylights and windows, likely to take advantage of the stray rays of sunlight that rarely find their way to Seattle. Surrounding the building, however, is dense jungle-like foliage giving it a very green feeling. It feels like the Pacific Northwest.

It was in this setting that I was able to meet with a bunch of different people in several areas at the airline. Led by Bobbie Egan, Manager of Media Relations, I spent time with Joe Sprague, Vice President of Marketing; Caroline Boren, Managing Director of Loyalty Marketing & Customer Advocacy; Andrew Harrison, Vice President of Planning & Revenue Management; Torque Zubeck, Managing Director of Alaska Air Cargo; Megan Lawrence, Managing Director of Governement and Community Relations; Paul McElroy, Managing Director of Strategic & Corporate Communications; and I even had the chance for a quick talk with President Brad Tilden and CEO Bill Ayer. It was an action-packed couple hours.

I’ll do my best to just stick to the more interesting parts of our conversation.

On the Mileage Plan frequent flier program
Joe Sprague explained that the program starts with the premise that Alaska is a small airline, so partnerships are important. Award redemption options are key, and Alaska has worked to maximize those opportunities by partnering with Air France/KLM, Air Pacific, American, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Delta, Era, Icelandair, Kenmore Air, Korean Air, LAN, PenAir, and Qantas. You see a lot of SkyTeam and oneworld airlines in there – a nice perk that can’t be found in many other programs.

So the airline really focuses on providing options for frequent fliers and giving them reasons to keep coming back. Last year’s introduction of the new MVP Gold 75k level is an effort to keep people flying Alaska, giving the more reasons to stick around.

The recent changes in the route network have given the airline more to think about. Hawai’i, in particular is, as Caroline Boren suggested, a “key aspirational destination.” A lot of people want to redeem there, so it has provided new options to make the program more valuable. It has added to the utility of the program in the key markets of Portland, Seattle, and Alaska, but it’s also opened up new opportunities. It has built up more interest in the airline throughout California, where there are now 4 cities with nonstop service to Hawai’i. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more coming.

Because of that, fliers are showing more interest in Mileage Plan as they start flying Alaska. So far, that strategy has worked well. The focus has been on bringing people to Hawai’i but not necessarily on those who are in Hawai’i already. That’s changing a bit – they’ve just hired a local sales and marketing person there.

On the Eskimo
I posed a reader question about the relevance of the Eskimo on the tail these days, and Joe explained that the question has been raised for about 25 years at least – ever since expansion went into Southern California and Mexico. But the company identifies with the Eskimo and “there is no ignoring how important the State of Alaska is to our company.” That doesn’t mean it won’t get a refresh to appeal to younger generations if needed at some point, but he “would be surprised if the Eskimo came off the tail.”

On Technology
Alaska is working hard to appeal to younger generations via technology. Part of that is technology – a redesign of the website, a mobile redesign coming, new apps for smartphones (Android coming soon), and yes, wifi on airplanes. When I asked about wifi usage, I was told it was “similar to every other airline.” Translation: not much. But Joe did say that routes like Seattle to Newark and Washington had 3 times the usage because of their length and business-focus.

I asked about the all-important question of onboard power. It’s debated a lot internally, but I heard some of the same refrains I hear elsewhere – battery life is improving, etc. I’m not getting my hopes up despite my belief that it’s essential. Instead, it sounds like we might see more effort to have charging stations on the ground to make it less necessary in the air but that’s about it for now.

On Partnering with Delta and American
Andrew Harrison was very clear in saying that it’s a huge advantage for Alaska to have partnerships with both those Delta and American. It gives Alaska the national reach it needs for its frequent fliers, and it also gives American and Delta a stronger west coast presence where they wouldn’t otherwise have one.

But how does he keep the peace while managing relationships with two rivals? He at one point compared it to an airline providing feed as an Express carrier. Airlines like SkyWest and Republic work with rival mainline airlines, and Alaska is providing the same utility in that sense. Of course, the branding is very different from an Express operation, but the idea is the same. Alaska fills a need for both airlines, and Andrew and the rest of the Alaska Airlines team make it work.

On Codesharing
I mentioned the issues that exist with codesharing and asked if Alaska was trying to fix some of those problems. Andrew affirmed that he thinks codesharing provides great benefit, but there are issues. With that in mind, Alaska is actively working with partners to make it a better experience. He said a classic example is when you get to AlaskaAir.com to check in but it’s a codeshare flight and you can’t. Those are the kind of things they need to resolve, and it sounds like there is a lot of effort going toward that in the next year.

On the Fleet
There really wasn’t much to say about the fleet. The airline is pretty happy these days. Horizon’s turboprop fleet is working well and now with the CRJ-700s at SkyWest, Horizon can focus on what it does best. For Alaska mainline, the airline loves the 737-800 and is excited for the 737-900ERs. But what about MAX, the new 737 derivative. Nothing to report just yet. “We’re waiting to hear more.”

On Cargo
I really enjoyed speaking with Torque Zubeck about cargo since it’s so important to the airline. Beyond cargo in the belly, there are 5 737-400 Combi aircraft that seat 72 in the back with cargo space up front. (A normal 737-400 for Alaska seats 144.) There is also 1 dedicated 737-400 freighter. As you can imagine, most of these get their workouts up in Alaska, where cargo and people often have little choice but to go by air. Those 737s are soliders up in the north. They’ve only been in service as combis and freighters for a couple years, replacing the old 737-200 Combis, but there has already been discussion about what will replace them when the time comes. I don’t expect to see that soon, however.

Those were the broad points, but I do have one or two more posts on individual topics in the hopper. Look for those in the next few weeks. If you have any specific questions about one of these topics, drop it in the comments and I’ll do my best to expand upon our conversations.

The first flight cost $121.70 on JetBlue and the second $283.70 on Alaska. Both of those were reimbursed by the APEX folks. The last flight home cost $175.40 on Delta. (You might remember my decision-making process on this one.) Overall, it was a good trip.

This was the first September 11th I’d flown on since before THE September 11th ten years ago. Being the tenth anniversary, I figured I’d arrive early in case security was stepped up. That was totally unnecessary. We left from the northern gates at Long Beach and the security line was shorter than usual. The waiting room, however, was jam-packed.

With the construction at LGB, we had to walk for about 5 minutes before we got to our airplane. Once there, we boarded quickly – the flight was only about half full.

The flight itself was uneventful as we headed north. JetBlue struck a deal to show a sneak preview of that new Zooey Deschanel show “New Girl” before its network debut, so that was a nice change of pace. (Show isn’t bad, actually.)

Then I watched an hour of NFL Gameday before I had had enough. That’s when it got weird. I flipped to MSNBC where the network was replaying NBC’s coverage from September 11, 2001 in full. I have no idea why, but I couldn’t stop watching.

I saw the confusion when American 77 hit the Pentagon. Then I saw one of the towers fall. Seeing this from an airplane was surreal. I’m not sure why I didn’t shut it off. I kept watching until we arrived at our gate in Seattle.

Once there, I met up with a friend and hitched a ride into town for a very good time at APEX. By Thursday, it was time to move on.

I had never flown Alaska for a long haul before, so I was looking forward to it. I took the light rail to the airport and found an insanely long security line – took me I think about 30 minutes to get through.

Alaska had been kind enough to give me a lounge pass when I had visited the airline earlier that week, and I was happy to take it so I could see the lounge. But since it took so long to get through security, I only had about 15 minutes to spare.

I went into the lounge near gate D1 and it’s a nice two level lounge with a great view. I went straight upstairs to try the much-vaunted pancake machine. It was awesome. Then I grabbed a glass of water at the kitchen window (which reminded me of a middle school cafeteria, in a good way) and then headed off to my gate.

When I arrived, I found our AlaskaAir.com liveried aircraft already fully boarded. It was still very early, but I got on. Seattle had been murky and chilly all week, so I was looking forward to a little sun. We took off and got through the clouds fairly quickly. Unfortunately, clouds stayed under us for much of the trip toward the Great Lakes, an area over which I had never flown before.

Onboard, I planned on using wifi, and it was lightning-fast. Probably helps to be in a part of the country where very few airplanes are flying.

But I also got myself a DigEPlayer onboard – one of those standalone movie players. This was pretty good, and I enjoyed watching X-Men First Class, but there were a couple problems. The biggest issue was that I hardly had room for two devices on my tray. I needed a place to hang the DigEPlayer. But more concerning was the cost – it was $14 to rent that thing. Sheesh. I watched one movie and then couldn’t finish the second. That’s a lot of money to pay for 1.5 movies, even if it can access the internet as well.

After we went just north of Chicago, we aimed for Newark. A front was rolling through so there were a lot of clouds, some rain, and a bunch of wind. Our pilots deftly weaved us through the traffic, plunking us down hard on the runway nice and early . . . in Newark . . . when the weather was bad. Crazy.

I took the AirTrain to New Jersey Transit into the city and spent a couple of great days in New York. Thank you to everyone who chimed in with suggestions on Trippy.

After heading up to Tarrytown for a wedding, we headed to Westchester Airport for our flight home.

It was a beautiful day in New York as we headed to the airport. Westchester is such a tiny terminal, undoubtedly due to rich residents nearby refusing to build an adequate terminal to service the traffic. Instead, the check-in area is tiny with lines criss-crossing all over the place.

We went through the small security area fairly easily, but then we were sitting in the one big hold room where seats were just about completely full. There were four of us traveling together on this flight, and we had to settle for two seats in the waiting area until another flight boarded and seats opened up.

Our airplane, a former Horizon bird that’s now with Atlantic Southeast, pulled up right on time and we boarded the newly Delta-fied aircraft.

There are a few things I hate about the CRJ-700, and the biggest one is the tiny size of the bins. My bag was able to be wedged into the bin, but from the looks of all the open space, not many others were successful.

After a short air traffic control delay (which the captain dutifully kept us up to date on), we took off to the south and I took notice of the significant cabin noise from being in the back. We were just one row behind the exit, but it was really noisy.

We sat in light chop through a high cloud layer much of the way down to Atlanta. The seatbelt sign stayed off, however, and I was able to use the lav. It’s not really that small, but the engine noise is deafening, and this one was pretty dirty.

We landed almost on time despite having to loop around to land from the west. At that point, our two friends went off to their flight to San Francisco and we went to try to get an earlier flight home.

When I originally booked these tickets, the flight was a 757 with wifi. I was looking forward to being able to get some work done after pushing things off all week long as I traveled. That didn’t happen.

Our airplane was replaced with a 777. That’s usually not something to complain about, but I really needed to get work done. When the swap was first made, I called Delta to see if I could change my flight. The agent said I could, but she said that the earlier flight was an illegal connection with just under an hour. That’s actually completely legal, but I got busy with something else and never followed up again. So we stuck with our flight.

But when we got to Atlanta, we figured we’d try to stand by. We went from our C arrival gate to the B gates only to find an agent unwilling to even put us on the standby list it was so full. So we trekked back to the E gates for our original flight.

If there’s one thing I really don’t like about flying, it’s flying through storms. Yet sure enough, there was a big line heading east over Mississippi, and I was getting anxious about it.

This was not helped after we boarded the aircraft and the flight attendant repeated every 5 minutes that the captain said everyone would have to stay seated for the first hour due to rough air, so if anyone needed to go to the lav, they should go before we departed.

She was actually very good at keeping people informed, but it just raised my anxiety. (Yes, I know it’s silly, but I’ve yet to figure out a way to get my fear instinct to accept that.) When we took off, we pointed west and climbed to reach cruising altitude before we got to the weather.

In the end, it was a total non-event. We flew right in the cloud tops, and there was barely a bump. About 45 minutes in, the seatbelts signs were off and it was smooth sailing.

We went just north of Dallas and waited for drinks and food to arrive. It took well over an hour after the seatbelt sign went off before they reached our row in the middle of the coach cabin. I have no idea why they were so slow, but it was frustrating We were really thirsty, and I was hungry so I had a tasty roast chicken and red pepper sandwich.

I flipped on a movie but got bored quickly. The screen was a real pain to use anyway because the touch sensitivity seemed to be about an inch to the right from where it should have been.

But that was fine – I could still get some work done while not connected to the web, so I did that and watch out the window as we went far south, barely skirting along the Mexican border over El Paso.

We came up just north of Tucson and landed in LA a couple minutes early.

Back in 1997, Alaska Airlines decided to tackle the issue with an internal group focusing on improving the pre-security experience. The result was the Airport of the Future that was implemented in 2002 in Anchorage. The design is now also in place in Seattle with Los Angeles under construction and Portland on the drawing board. The result is a more efficient use of space (50 percent less) and people (more than double productivity). While I was up in Seattle, Alaska gave me a tour of the facility, and I put together a little video (sorry for the shaky hand) showing you how it works.

It’s amazing how much better it feels with the open arrangement like this. There’s nothing worse than finding a long snaking line when you walk in the door. This eliminates that completely.

The basic idea was the now-patented two step process. You walk up to a kiosk to start and do what you need to do to get checked in. Then you move on behind the kiosks to check your bag, if needed. There are lobby assistants around the area to help everyone, including those who might not be pros with technology. Instead of reaching a dead-end at the ticket counter and having to backtrack, you just keep walking forward through the system.

The process worked so well that there have been very few tweaks since the first installation. It’s mostly been around ergonomics – height of the computer, bag belt speeds, etc. All minor stuff. In the future, the hope is that the FAA will allow for self bag-tagging and that will speed up the process even more. (A test is underway.)

My biggest question – why hasn’t this happened in other places? There are a few reasons. First, sometimes the economics don’t work. Alaska won’t do it unless a payback will happen within about 2.5 years. In Seattle, the project cost $26 million and the business case was solid. In a place like Portland, however, Alaska is hamstrung by a long term lease, so it couldn’t generate the savings by giving back counter space. I’m assuming something is changing in that regard since Portland is now being revisited.

In LA, it’s different. Alaska finally got through the complicated web there to move over to Terminal 6. Since Alaska was on a month to month lease at LAX, it had a lot more flexibility. That will be done next year.

But what about other airlines? Alaska patented the process but it opened it up so the industry could use it. So far, there isn’t much of that. Delta has done a little of it in Atlanta, but it’s not quite the same. So why haven’t others done it? Part of it may simply be the availability of capital. Most airlines don’t make sustained profits and so the idea of spending money on something like this might not be at the top of the list when other projects seem more important. The money just isn’t there.

Hopefully something will change, because the Airport of the Future is a much nicer experience to start the trip than using a traditional counter.

Initially I had hoped to try WestJet and a 737-600 but the timing didn’t work out, so instead I ended up flying Alaska via Seattle and connecting into Kelowna. (It’s just an hour shuttle ride down from there to Penticton.) The cost was about $240. On the way back, I took Southwest from Portland using my friend’s award ticket. The most exciting part was my first ride on a Q400.

I got to the airport about an hour early, and the place was hopping. Despite that, it took only 10 minutes to get through security and I headed to my lonely gate 2 – all the way at the northern end of the terminal.

Alaska started boarding way early – about 45 minutes prior to departure. I had snagged a bulkhead when I checked in, so I boarded later in the process, but it was still about a half hour before departure.

I love the bulkheads on Alaska’s 737-700 because they’re not really bulkheads. You can still stretch out underneath the First Class seats in front of you. Instead, there are just curtains that extend halfway down to provide privacy for the fancy fliers. It’s a much better way to fly than having a hard bulkhead.

I took my seat and the flight attendants were doing a great job of managing the bag situation. Two others in my row tried to put their personal items up, but the flight attendant asked them to put it below the seat. Neither of them thought they could since it was a First Class seat in front of them. Funny.

The early boarding led to a 15 minute early departure. We did the usual Orange County rocket launch so that we could glide quietly over the rich people below. Once over the ocean, we shot up to 40,000 feet and winged our way north.

This was the first flight I’ve been on over an hour that had wifi, so I was looking forward to trying it out. It took me a little while to get it to work, but once I did, it was actually very fast the whole way. I was able to get a ton of work done, alternating with a view out the window. Nice work, gogo.

I had no plans to get breakfast, but the flight attendants came by with a skillet breakfast with eggs, potato, and sausage. It looked good, and for only $6, I thought I’d give it a shot. It WAS good, even if it did come with Hellman’s ketchup. (Who the heck knew Hellman’s made ketchup and why isn’t it Best Foods, like the mayo is on the west coast?)

We landed and I had to chance to meet up with frequent commenter Nicholas Barnard on my long layover. We had a great day of spotting from the central food court in Seattle, and then I went over to my next flight.

Horizon’s setup in Seattle is a lot like Delta’s in Salt Lake but on a smaller scale. You check in a gate and then walk out on to bare concrete covered walkways to get to your airplane. Ours was the festive-looking 25th anniversary aircraft for Horizon Air.

I dropped my bag on the “a la cart” station and then boarded. This may be a prop, but it has good interior space. The flight attendants were a little gruff, but other than that, it was a great flight. I thought it would be better to show more details in this 1m50s video. (I’m speaking quietly to avoid bugging the person next to me.)

I really enjoyed the ride – it’s pretty quiet, the vibration is minimal, and the views were spectacular. Combine that with the free microbrews onboard, and it’s hard to think of a more fun way to spend the afternoon.

After arrival in Kelowna, it was an easy entry into the country and my shuttle was there to take me down to Penticton. It’s beautiful up there, but the trip was shortlived. Soon we were driving down to Portland and I had to fly back home.

We stayed in an airport hotel the night before, so I took the shuttle over in the morning. I arrived to find the security line stretching halfway down to the other concourse. Despite this, it moved quickly and I got through in only about 15 minutes. Then I went to the gate to sit and wait.

I wistfully passed the JetBlue flight heading nonstop to Long Beach, but my friend had Southwest points to use, so that wasn’t an option. We boarded on time and both flights were completely uneventful. There was a low marine layer at each stop but we got above it quickly and cruised high. The only thing notable onboard was how empty it was. I thought the first flight was light, but the second leg was maybe a third full.

Sounds like summer is just about over.

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