Airline Review: Alaska Airlines Flight from Fairbanks to San Francisco via Seattle

Fairbanks to Seattle (Alaska Post Cruise) . 2012 . September 25

This post is part of our Alaska Pre and Post Cruise Report and follow-up of our popular Alaska cruise series. Do check out our Alaska Cruise story too if this is your first time here! :)

We left Fairbanks with a heavy heart as we knew that this signals the end of our Alaska holiday. However, ther was also some sense of excitement as we were also looking forward to our Alaska Post Cruise portion of our itinerary where we will be visiting the Pike Place Market and the first Starbucks Store at Seattle and a revisit to San Francisco before returning to Singapore.

We boarded the airport transfer hotel van from Fairbanks Princess River Lodge to the Airport for our Alaska Airlines flight #124 to Seattle. Flight time was around three and a half hours from Seattle. We have chosen to take an early flight (again..) as we wanted to spend more time at Seattle. The flight would depart Fairbanks at 8.40am in the morning and reach Seattle at 1.15pm.

Booking the Flight Online

Our initial plan was to fly from Fairbanks to San Francisco and then followed by our flight on Singapore Airlines back to Singapore after a couple of days' stay at San Francisco. When we were doing our research, we realised that there was only 1 airline that flies from Fairbanks to San Francisco (and that is Alaska Airlines). Moreover, it actully transits at Seattle before flying to San Francisco.

Since we have not visited Seattle before, we decided to extend our holiday with a night's stay at Seattle before flying to San Francisco. On hindsight, it was a good decision as we managed to visit the Pike Place Market, the First Starbucks Store and had a good chinese meal at Chinatown.

Tip: Alaska Airlines has a Price Guarantee policy that we actually used to offset our next Alaska flight from Seattle to San Francisco. After you purchase a flight on Alaska Airlines, do monitor the price of your flight before your departure. If the same flight is now less on alaskaair.com any time before your departure, you can use its automated process to claim a Guaranteed Airfare credit towards your next Alaska flight purchase. We had booked our air tickets from Fairbanks to Seattle way in advance in anticipation of price increase due to the cruise crowd. However, there were some price promotion a few months before our travel date (USD $49 per person) which we could claim as credit to offset our next ticket purchase from Seattle to San Francisco.

Checking in at Fairbanks Airport.   Check in was pretty fast (as there were only probably a few flights in the domestic airport) and we were soon at the boarding gate.

We were simply stunned by the beautiful sun rise at the boarding gate and couldn't stop snapping some photos...

 Alaska Airlines Aircraft taxiing on the tarmac. Is that our aircraft?

Cloudy weather awaits us at Seattle, it seems..though the temperature is still a cool 13 degrees.

Cabin Amenities and Food

Seat Pitch for the flight was relatively ok.  It was a B737 single isle aircraft that Alaska used for this flight.

The flight was pretty full, though we suspect that most are Alaska Cruise travellers like us who have went on a land tour following their cruise. We could see a few familar faces which we have probably seen on the cruise on board the flight.

There was no complimentary food for the flight, but you could order from the airline's Northern Bites Menu with food-for-purchase options. A fresh meal is offered on almost every flight longer than 2 hours while pinic packs are available for purchase on all flight over an hour.

Breakfast options. Prices start from USD $6, which we thought was quite reasonable.

Lunch and Dinner Options. Mainly Cheeseburgers, Sandwiches, Chicken with rice or vegetables.

Complimentary beverages were provided, including Starbucks Pike Place Roast. You could aslo choose from sodas, juices, herbal tea or bottled water.

Besides complimentary beverages, a small pack of cranberry snack mix was given to each passenger.

We settled for the Pancake Skillet (USD $6), which comes with scrambled eggs, chicken-apple sausage and breakfast syrup.

Note that payment has to be made via credit card though.

Inflight Wifi is available for purchase and is provided by Gogo.

Safety Information Card.

In Flight Magazine and Shopping

Alaska Airlines In Flight Magazine. In case you are wondering, the moose soft toy is not a gift from the Airline, but our purchase in Fairbanks during our Alaska trip! ;)

After our breakfast and a short power nap on the aircraft, we were soon touching down at Seattle Airport.

We saw a few Alaska Airlines aircraft on the tarmac as we were taxiing to our alighting gate.

This flight continues to San Francisco after its transit at Seattle. However, we decided to stay a couple of days at Seattle to explore the sights (Pike Place Market, Starbucks First Store and Space Needle) before taking another Alaska flight from Seattle to San Francisco.

Final Verdict:  Overall, we had a comfortable flight on board Alaska Airlines. For the price that we paid, we were a bit disappointed that it did not come with a paid in-flight meal. However, we were pleased with Alaska Airlines' Price Guarantee policy which we managed to claim an amount of USD $49 per person to offset our next Alaska Airline ticket purchase.

This post is part of our Alaska Pre and Post Cruise Report and follow-up of our popular Alaska cruise series. Do check out our Alaska Cruise story too if this is your first time here! :)

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