I’ve hit the age where it’s time to start celebrating half centuries. This time, my wife and I headed up to Napa to go join a friend for his 50th. You’d think I would have flown Alaska to get my elite status, but… no. For the flights we would have taken to Santa Rosa, the airline wanted over $800 roundtrip each. No thank you. With that off the table, my wife decided she wanted to fly out of Long Beach. Southwest it would be.
This was a somewhat nostalgic trip, because it may very well be the last time I fly with Southwest before open seating goes away. On the way up, I remembered why I’ll miss it, and that’s the focus of today’s post. The return? Well, that was a different story entirely.
We looked at both Sacramento and Oakland, but Oakland was the better deal at $343 roundtrip, so that’s where we went. It was a basic economy ticket, but I didn’t really care since assigned seating hasn’t started yet. There aren’t enough differences to bother buying up until that happens.
I checked in for our first flight 24 hours in advance, and we had a quite nice A44 and A45. This was going to give us the pick of the litter onboard, including in front of the wing which will soon cost extra.
We took a Lyft to the airport, and I appreciated how much room there was to get dropped off at the newly-rebuilt curb area in front of the terminal.
We went through security where there was no line, and we walked over to our gate. The terminal was absolutely packed with travelers.
With nowhere to sit, we just lined up at the boarding poles and waited. Maybe I did get a little sad standing there. Maybe I did give a pole a hug. You can’t prove it. Oh wait.
The plane had arrived on time, but I was worried we were going to be late when early boarding went very slowly. Then things sped up.
Southwest 2402
October 24, 2025
From Long Beach
➤ Scheduled Departure: 1p
➤ Actual Departure: 1259p
➤ From Gate: 6
➤ Wheels Up: 106p
➤ From Runway: 30
To Oakland
➤ Wheels Down: 159p
➤ On Runway: 30
➤ Scheduled Arrival: 220p
➤ Actual Arrival: 210p
➤ At Gate: 26
Aircraft
➤ Type: Boeing 737-7H4
➤ Delivered: December 8, 2025
➤ Registered: N225WN, msn 34333
➤ Livery: Hot Dog on a Stick
Flight
➤ Cabin: Coach in Seat 7F
➤ Load: ~90% Full
➤ Flight Time: 53m
Eventually they called the A group, and we slowly made our way up the ramp in the front instead of doing the end-run up the back stairs. We grabbed seats 7E and F. My wife loves flying from LGB but she absolutely hates open seating. This time, she had a new reason to hate it. There was a guy sitting in the aisle in front of us, and as people walked by asking if it was open, he said the seats were being saved, which is obnoxious but not against the rules. His partner in crime boarded toward the very end, and it was just a single person. Because of that, they ended up with an empty middle on the mostly-full flight. That is the kind of scheming strategy that will not be missed, but in this case, I didn’t bug me much. We had our seats.
Despite the slow early boarding, we pushed back a minute early. It was then that I decided to be one of the first to test Southwest’s newly-free wifi on its first day in operation, October 24. (Thanks T-Mobile.) I was on an old B737-700, so I had no hopes of functional wifi, but that didn’t stop me from trying. And then… a miracle.
It logged right in and got me about 5 Mbps download speeds. It was functional enough that I could even do a little work. All I had to do was watch a T-Mobile commercial. It was well worth it.
We were up in the air very quickly. It was a particularly-smoggy day in the LA Basin, but it was a smooth ride as we climbed above the pollution.
We took a right just past LAX and there were some spectacular views.
Then as we passed north into the valley, I could see a B747 between Westwood and Century City getting ready to land at LAX. That was an exciting start to the trip.
As we kept climbing, the flight attendants came through. I had a glass, er, paper cup of water. It took awhile but eventually the flight attendants came through with those Maui Monk pretzels that are so good.
While we were at cruise, I got a text from our friends who were dog-sitting saying that there was a problem and we needed to call when we landed. Oh great, that got me anxious for the last 20 minutes as we descended into Oakland on a partly cloudy day. It turns out that one of our pups decided it would be fun to wreak havoc, but at least it wasn’t catastrophic. I tried to enjoy the approach, and did snap this shot with our shadow in view.
After briefly contemplating an immediate u-turn, we thought better of it and stayed the course. We waited for our friends to come pick us up. With time to kill, I thought we’d try to use the Priority Pass membership I’ve never actually used despite it coming with a credit card. We walked over to a very empty Terminal 1 and were thwarted when the lounge desk guy required a boarding pass. Since we had already flown, we weren’t going to be allowed in. Rats. But you know, that place was packed, so we didn’t miss much.
Instead, we visited one of the empty eateries and shared an overly-greasy and mediocre quesadilla. Then it was off to Napa.
