The Details
- Flight: AS500
- Aircraft: B737-900ER
- Class: Domestic First
- Seat: 3A
- Route: Seattle Tacoma (SEA)-Indianapolis (IND)
- Distance: 1,903 miles
- Duration: 3hrs 20min
- Departure: 10:23AM
- Arrival: 4:43PM
The Preflight
After arriving from San Diego, I had a forty-minute connection before my flight home to Indy. The aptly named flight 500, was departing from the North satellite terminal and I arrived at the gate with five minutes until boarding.
The B737-900ER for this leg, registration N285AK, was a three-year-old aircraft delivered to Alaska Airlines in March 2018.
The Flight
Alaska Airlines offers a total of 16 Domestic First-class seats on board their B737-900ERs arranged in a 2-2 configuration across four rows. I was seated in 3A on this flight.
Each seat was 21″ wide and had a generous 41″ of pitch. The recline was at five inches.
While I generally like window seats, the drawback is that the legroom is slightly reduced due to the in-seat power supply.
There was a large bi-fold tray table stowed in the armrest.
In between the two seats was a small tabletop area. There was also a small retractable cocktail tray.
Each seat also had an individual USB port and 110V outlet.
Each passenger was also given a carton of water and a sanitizing wipe.
Boarding finished at 10:04AM and we pushed back two minutes later. The taxi to runway 16L was about 18 minutes. We took off at 10:24AM with a thick cloud layover over the downtown Seattle area.
Service began slowly 30 minutes after take-off with a drink and nuts service. I went with a glass of sparkling wine.
Lunch was served 10 minutes later. I went with a tasty Moroccan chicken over couscous. It was served with a small green salad, cold bread, and chocolate chip cookie.
At the front of the aircraft was a single lavatory for first-class passengers.
An hour before landing, flight attendants came through with another dedicated beverage service. I had my second Bloody Mary of the day.
Soon we began our descent into the Indy area with dramatic fall and winter scenery.
We had a great view of downtown Indy and the Salesforce Tower on our approach to runway 5L.
We landed at 4:42PM, over forty minutes ahead of schedule thanks to generous schedule padding. The taxi to the gate took only seven minutes and soon I was on my way home.
This was another pleasant flight in Domestic First with Alaska Airlines. They remain my favorite airline when flying from the West Coast.