Day 0
Segment 1:
December 19, 2019, Alaska Airlines 173
Portland, OR (PDX) to Anchorage, AK (ANC)
Scheduled Departure 19:25 PST, Actual Departure 19:23 PST, gate C9, runway 10L, temperature 55F, wind S16G25, rain
Scheduled Arrival 10:18 AKST, Actual Arrival 9:57 AKST, gate C3, runway 7L, temperature 14F, wind light and variable, clear skies
Boeing 737-900ER, N486AS
Actual Flight Time 3:17
A Pineapple Express from the tropics took aim at the Pacific Northwest on the 18th, bringing with it a forecast of several inches of rain in the Portland area over the course of three days. Temps shot up from the upper 30s to the mid 50s rapidly as the clouds opened up.
Thanks to the marginal weather on top of normal rush hour traffic on Portland area freeways, it took a whopping one hour and 45 minutes to get from my home in the suburbs to the long term parking garage entrance at PDX, a distance of 21 miles.
Rush hour on I-5
As such, I arrived at a soggy PDX 60 minutes prior to scheduled departure.
PDX drop-off area under the canopy
Seeing a line of about 10 people at the AS First Class/Elite check in, I opted to use a kiosk to print my bag tag and boarding pass. As luck would have it I think I picked the only kiosk out of about 30 that wouldn’t print a bag tag, so I had to stand in line anyway. After a short-ish wait a friendly AS agent tagged my roller to Fairbanks and I was on my way.
The TSA precheck line at the B/C concourse checkpoint appeared to be about 30 people deep, so I walked over to the D/E concourse checkpoint where there was nobody in line for precheck and was quickly through, with a quick hike back over to the C concourse via the concourse connector.
Thanks to the abnormally long drive time to PDX, I didn’t have time to enjoy the Alaska Lounge, which is just as well. While AS has recently improved the food and beverage offerings at its lounges, the new seating arrangement in their PDX facility is atrocious. I go to a lounge for quiet and privacy, not to sit at a table with five other people I don’t know.
Boarding commenced promptly at T-40 at gate C9. Our ride north was on one of the -900ER’s with the old style F seating and ample leg room.
Catering was still loading as we boarded, so there was a wait of a few minutes to get to ubiquitous AS PDB, the 8oz bottle of water.
AS gets a lot of flak for not doing a full PDB service in F, but I’ll go down to the mat and say I actually appreciate the bottle of water. There’s multiple hours sitting on one’s duff in the air to load up on grandpa’s cough medicine, so proper hydration ahead of time isn’t a bad thing.
We pushed back 2 minutes early and had a quick taxi out to runway 10L, jumping ahead of an AS Q400 bound for EUG in the process. Flight time was estimated at three hours and twenty minutes, and the pilots said that due to turbulence on the climb out they had asked the flight attendants to remain seated. We took off into the night, bouncing around in the stormy air as we followed the Columbia River to Washougal, then made a hard left turn and pointed northwest towards the Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver Island. We reached our cruise altitude of 34,000 feet as we passed over Aberdeen, and our flight path this evening took us out to the west of Vancouver Island and over the top of Haida Gwalior before crossing the Pacific almost in a straight line headed northwest towards Anchorage.
PDX-ANC flight path
Once we hit 10,000 feet the WiFi and inflight streaming was turned on. AS recently announced a partnership with Hallmark Channel to show hundreds of their comically bad Christmas movies on their airplanes, but fortunately they still had one of the best Christmas movies of all time available:
The turbulence finally settled down after about the first 40 minutes of flight, and the flight attendants sprung to action. I ordered the Lush IPA from Seattle’s Fremont Brewing, and it arrived along with warm nuts.
Dinner tonight was a choice of entrees between a vegan ravioli or chicken with rice. I went with the chicken and rice, and it was accompanied with a fresh salad and dinner roll. Since the VX acquisition, AS has made a very noticeable effort to step up its catering in F, and the effort shows. The portion sizes aren’t as big as what you’d get in F on UA, for example, but the quality is much better.
Warm cookies were passed out after dinner, and the rest of the flight was uneventful. Once Hans Gruber fell off the top of Nakatomi Plaza I dozed off for a bit until we approached ANC via the usual arrival pattern up Turnagain Arm. We greased runway 7L ahead of schedule and parked at C3 in a snow-less Anchorage, just as ANC was getting revved up for its nightly red eye bonanza; AS nonstops to LAX, PHX, and ORD were all getting ready to load as we arrived.
Segment 2:
December 19, 2019, Alaska Airlines 167
Anchorage, AK (ANC) to Fairbanks, AK (FAI)
Scheduled Departure 23:00 AKST, Actual Departure 22:59 AKST, gate C4, runway 33, temperature 13F, wind S6, clear skies
Scheduled Arrival 22:59 AKST, Actual Arrival 22:55 AKST, gate 1, runway 2L, temperature -26F, calm wind, a few clouds
Boeing 737-900ER, N407AS
Actual Flight Time 0:44
Scheduled Departure
As luck would have it my connection to Fairbanks was scheduled right next door at C4. Originally scheduled as a 737-700, the flight was subbed with another -900ER. Boarding commenced a bit late but concluded on time and we pushed back one minute early.
Thankfully no deicing was needed, and we zipped out to runway 33 and took off to the north over Knik Arm, passing over the west side of Wasilla and made it all the way up to a brief cruise of 32,000 feet as we passed over the Broad Pass and Cantrell area. We remained at our cruise altitude for a whopping five minutes before starting a gradual descent into FAI just as we passed over the Denali National Park entrance.
There’s not much to say about a 44 minute flight in the dark. I had a glass of ice water and stared out the window at a faint aurora in the northern sky.
Winds were calm at FAI, and we landed straight ahead on runway 2L, slicing through a few wisps of ground fog courtesy of the chilly -26F temperature.
ANC-FAI flight path
Bags were delivered promptly as they always are at FAI, and I dug out my stocking hat and gloves for the quick walk out to the rental car lot, where I had a Subaru Impreza waiting for me. The car wasn’t plugged in so it cranked a little harder than it should have, but ultimately fired right up.
Thanks to the cold temps the tires were frozen, leading to a bumpy ride for the first half mile as I pulled out of the rental car area and headed down Airport Way towards downtown Fairbanks and my ultimate destination for the evening, the Springhill Suites. I’ve stayed at most of the big hotels in Fairbanks and tend to gravitate towards the Springhill Suites for its combination of central location, restaurant (Lavelle’s in the lobby is one of the best restaurants in Fairbanks and also has one of the best wine selections in Alaska), and spacious rooms. I crashed at 1:00 AM Alaska time. It was good to be back in the ‘Banks, even for only a day.
