Alaska Airlines promises it’s on a mission to create an airline we’ll love! Love is a strong word, though I’d say if I did love any airline, it just might be Alaska. And you know how it is when you’re “almost” in love, you want to keep track of how the relationship is going. Alaska Airlines just announced enhancements worth keeping track of, though some of the benefits started this past spring. For instance, Alaska is updating aircraft, changing up their menu, and announcing airport lounge openings.
Food and Drinks, Anyone?
Their cabin food and drink changes are extensive. It’s rare that I buy food on a flight, but the few times I’ve needed to, their fruit and cheese plate fit the bill. I also noticed on my last Alaska flight that as soon as it’s safe to move about the cabin, the crew offers cups of water. Nice touch.
New Lounges
In the lounge at JFK, Alaska prides themselves on having lounge baristas crafting great coffee beverages. Some people mattress run, but given my coffee snob status, I may have to make an espresso run and check this out!
Airplane Interiors
Retrofitting and facelifting scare me unless they happen on airplanes! Then it’s a good thing. Both Alaska’s Airbus and Boeing planes are being updated.
We’re retrofitting our Airbus cabins.| Image by Alaska Airlines
Boeing 737-700s are getting a facelift.| Image by Alaska Airlines
Here’s Alaska’s timeline for these changes as well as other updates. Though I never found Alaska’s seats to be uncomfortable, I’m looking at these photos and thinking these seats might just get Alaska Airlines the love status they’re after! I’m curious. Which of these changes matter to you? Or maybe they don’t matter at all.
I’d love Alaska more if they would make a way to sort out mixed cabin award seats on the main price calendar when trying to book awards on their website for Alaska and partner airlines.
Good suggestion Dan. I’ll have to take notice of this but more importantly perhaps Alaska will take notice of this. Any reason why they wouldn’t improve the search function to make it easier to book awards?
Alaska needs to improve its award routing which horrendous. For instance if you request LAX-BKK, they will route like this LAX-LAS-SEA-PEK-BKK. Then you’d decide to skip the first 2 and go straight from SEA-BKK. This is what would you get SEA-LAS-LAX-PEK-BKK. Very terrible routing that doesn’t make any sense other than to punish the traveler redeeming the miles.
Good point, Kalboz. That even happens when you’re simply looking for routing within North America.
I’ve had coffees made at the JFK lounge, and they were terrific. Just be aware that the hours are limited to mornings. Regular coffee is always available by machine.
Less excited by the airline seat changes. The good news is that there will be better chances of upgrading to first class. The bad news is the same because the space will be squeezed to provide double the number of first class seats on the Airbus.
Thanks for the review of the coffees, and especially that the specialty service is only in the morning. Interesting to note the seats changes which seem to almost cancel each other out. Thank you Jana for adding to the conversation!