I spent the weekend in Seattle, flying up on Friday and back on Sunday. Oddly, for me at least, the weekend included no flights on United.
It was strangely liberating to fly from Burbank to Seattle on Alaska on Friday evening and back to Los Angeles on American on Sunday morning. United was actually the cheaper option, but 1.) I needed to travel at certain times and 2.) I wanted to travel nonstop. From Burbank, I would have had to fly via San Francisco on United. That would have meant leaving Burbank at the around the same time but arriving three hours later into Seattle versus the nonstop flights. No thanks.
The flights were good. Both were on Embraer E-175s in first class and the service was outstanding on both. Dinner was served on the Alaska flight (hot turkey sandwich) and I appreciated that the Alaska/Horizon regional jets have ovens in first class. The return AA flight was operated by Compass Airlines, which was a Northwest subsidiary and still uses the old NWA logo. The breakfast included crackers, cheese, grapes, a banana, granola, and cinnamon roll…pretty hearty. More importantly than the meals, I find the 1-2 seating in first class on these aircraft to be more comfortable than flying mainline. Overhead bins easily accommodate larger carryons and the lack of a seatmate on the “A” side make the flight feel far less claustrophobic.
CONCLUSION
I’ll be back to my “first love” United this week. And United will remain my carrier of choice. But I’m to the point where I am not going to add unnecessary connections just to fly United. We’re past that in this world of diminished value for airline patronage. It’s also fun to check out the competition.
Due to devaluing loyalty programs, are you less loyal than before to one airline?
Glad you had a good flight, the AS/Horizon E175s are better than the AS/Skywest ones since they replace a coat closet with extra galley storage, meaning you probably got glassware instead of plastic cups in first class 😉
On the other hand the only two choices I’ve had on my last EIGHT AS E175 flights the past two months have been “turkey sandwich or protein platter” so I really wish they’d switch it up.
Very interesting.
The American Eagle/Compass plane had a Northwest logo? I wonder how that looked. Red tail only? Or also the white circle a white triangle pointing to the northwest?
I just meant the airline logo (for example, printed on their safety card)
I do most of my west coast flying on AS now. Usually cheaper than UA, easy upgrades from OAK/SFO, and no change fees as MVPG. Two discount CX J RTs to BKK and a handful of domestic flights will maintain Gold and net me about 130k AS miles. It’s a nice complement to 1K.