San Diego California to Portland Oregon on Alaska Airlines

Posted • January 7, 2009 • 1 Comment

The Adventure Begins

How long does it take to fly from San Diego to Portland, Oregon?
On this particular day it took over 6 hours.

We arrived at the airport plenty early for our 1:50 PM flight. We were there shortly after 11 AM. Way too early you say? “Oh contrare mon frare” One of our check in bags was twelve and a half pounds over weight – $50.00 please!

Shirley showing her usual genius figured out how we could fly first class for only fifty dollars more and checked in an extra bag. Alright we are heading to the examination area, at least that is what it seemed like. After making it through the screening and arriving at the gate the plane was already being boarded. Whew! We made it, we’ll be in Portland at about 4:30 PM or so we thought.

As we stowed our carry-on luggage and settled into our seats I could hear the flight attendant talking on some sort of radio. A few minutes later she came into our section and made an announcement. “A little black box, one that controls the heat on one of the windows in the cockpit needs to be replaced.” She said not to worry they would check around and find where the closest one was. “There is probably one here at the San Diego Airport.”

As we worried about our flight status we were drinking coffee and contemplated the origin of the pretzel while eating our mini pretzels. She came back into our section and announced “We have found one at LAX and we will have it flown here in about an hour but, you will have to de-board the plane”

When we got off the plane there was an Alaska Airlines employee handing out 1000 bonus miles to each passenger as a token for the airport delay. As the time passed it was announced that our flight was being delayed and we were given updates on the parts location. Over 3 hours later the part arrived from Los Angles in San Diego. There is nothing quite like airport delays.

Boy that must be a really slow plane you say. It sure was in-fact it was so slow it never got off the ground. This plane was so slow because it wasn’t equipped with wings it was a truck. That’s right a TRUCK brought the black box from the Los Angles Airport to the San Diego Airport. There must not have been any flights from LA to San Diego on Tuesday the 6th of january 2009.

It took them five minutes to install this little black box and they allowed us to board once again.

The flight home was really great. I drank about a half dozen cups of really good coffee. Which by the way was served in ceramic mugs. They even offered us a meal. I took the salami over the tuna.

We arrived home after 9:30 PM and we are only 12 minutes from PDX.

We started out looking for cheap flights and Alaska Airlines came up as the best value for our trip. Shirley and I always enjoyed flying Alaska Airlines in the past…

On the way to San Diego we took a Horizon puddle jumper to the Seatac Airport. Arrived too late to board our flight to San Diego, had a 2 hour layover to the next flight (which they decommissioned), and had to wait another hour and a half for another plane. Maybe we would have been better off taking Southwest Air. Maybe not!

I still like Alaska Airlines and will use them again. Was it their branding or their marketing that is responsible for my choice? Neither it is their customer service.

Customer service is one of your best marketing tools. It doesn’t matter whether your business is brick and mortar or online.

Late,
Gary Pool

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