The Admirals Club in Seattle at 7:00pm was deserted. I ordered a double Jack Daniels and paid the $9.00 + tip, checked my email. Even though I was the only one there they made me move to change a light bulb :-)

I went to the Alaska gate and boarded. There were about 5 other F passengers on the 737-400. Nice seats. My reading light was out but I moved over to the next seat.

No drink offered before take-off, just bottles of water at the seats :-( Is this the vaunted AS service?

The captain said that the trip would be 1.5 hours with a possible delay due to ATC. Uh oh.

We took off after waiting for 3 or 4 other planes. The FAs took our drink orders leisurely. I ordered coffee & Courvoisier.

The FAs pretty much ignored us except to check back one more time. We got a little tiny bag of almonds, too. That was the terrific AS food :-)

A bit North of SFO we started circling. The captain said that we were stacked up for a few minutes for ATC.

About 30 minutes later we continue towards the airport. More circling.

Then we make an approach. There's the airport, clear as can be, but suddenly we aboart our descent, landing gear back up, and climb out again.

The captain mumbled something on the PA about another plane. Apparently ATC mistakenly put another plane on "our" runway.

More circling. More circling. More circling.

Over 3 hours later and we finally land. I wonder how much extra fuel the plane was carrying, considering the 1.5 hour expected trip and the light load? That's SFO for you, I guess.

Then of course it's a 15 minute ride to the rental car area, in a "generic" bus.

Altogether it was a little nerve wracking and I was disappointed in the AS service, which wasn't any better than AA or US and even a bit worse.