The Details
- Flight: AS500
- Aircraft: B737-900
- Class: Main Cabin
- Seat: 17A
- Route: Indianapolis (IND)-Seattle Tacoma (SEA)
- Distance: 1,915miles
- Duration: 4hrs 25min
- Departure: 6:28PM
- Arrival: 7:53PM
The Preflight
For this trip, I was going back home to San Diego again to visit family. Since I had a few Alaska Airlines gift cards left over from previous Costco sales ($500 for $450), I booked with Alaska on the flight down. The routing would be IND-SEA-SEA with a two-hour layover in Seattle. However, on the morning of the flight, I got an email notification from Alaska stating the flight was going to be delayed by an hour.
I arrived at the terminal just 50 minutes prior to departure and within 10 minutes was clear through TSA thanks to Precheck. Our flight was departing from B5 at one end of the terminal. Our aircraft was a true vintage B737-900, one of just 52 ever produced prior to the more popular B737-900ER. Registration N317AS, she was delivered to Alaska Airlines 20 years ago in March 2003.
Our flight number was the aptly numbered AS500 after the Indy 500. Boarding began at 5:48PM.
The Flight
Alaska Airlines offers a total of 16 Domestic First and 162 economy seats in a two-cabin configuration on board their B737-900s, -990ERs, and -9MAXs. The economy cabin is further split between 24 “Premium” extra-legroom seats in the first four rows and 138 Main Cabin seats arranged in a 3-3 configuration. I was seated in 17A, which was the second exit row on the aircraft. Both exit rows and the five rows between Premium and the exit row were reserved for Oneworld elites.
Alaska Airlines features BL3530 slimline seats in their Main Cabin which are each 17.7 inches wide.
Both exit rows also offer over 37.5 inches of pitch which is the most of any economy row including Premium seats.
The slimline seats were well designed with a simple two-drink tray table, 110V outlet, USB port, and storage pocket.
The flight ended up being less than 50% full on this Wednesday evening which meant boarding was very quick at under 20 minutes. We pushed back at 6:15PM and took off eight minutes later.
Alaska Airlines offers a fairly tasty buy-on-board program for food. I had pre-ordered the Thai Ginger Beef wrap for which I got 25% off of thanks to my Alaska Airlines personal credit card. The wrap was delicious.
I also ordered a refreshing Elysian IPA that was served with packaged chips.
Rather than seatback entertainment screens, Alaska had personal device streaming available. While not as robust as American, Delta, or United, I was still able to entertain myself for a few hours.
At the rear of the main cabin were three narrow lavatories.
We landed in a rainy Seattle at 7:53PM and arrived at the gate at 8:01PM. Thanks for the ride!
I really enjoyed the main cabin experience with Alaska Airlines. They have a robust food and beverage program for economy passengers and the seats generally offer an inch more legroom than other domestic competitors.