Wednesday, June 23, 2010

DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SAN JOSE? ALASKA AIRLINES DAMN WELL DOES!












I'll tell you what. I'm so danged impressed with the fact that Alaska Airlines deplanes onto the tarmac there OUT OF THE FRONT AND THE BACK OF THE PLANE that I'm beside myself.

I flew through there today on Alaska and was off the plane in like 5 minutes, sitting in the back portion of the plane. I've never done that before and thought it was the coolest thing ever! We were delayed taking off when headed to San Jose and so I had a very limited time to change planes to get home to Texas. We had some mechanical problems that took about an hour to fix before we headed to San Jose, and there was just an hour between flights in San Jose, so I knew we would be cutting it close.

So get this: there was a crew of folks from the Alaska Airlines waiting at both front and back exits of the plane when we landed an hour late waiting to escort the passengers getting on my flight to Texas to our plane, which was already boarding. Our Texas bound plane was one gate away, so they escorted us to ensure safety from the fueling/luggage/food/etc trucks running between the two planes.

Really, I swear that's true! The boarding agents were on the ground and gathered our boarding passes and took the passes inside and scanned them, then returned them to us on the plane, as we boarded whilst they were scanning the passes. I have not had such a high level of airline customer service EVER!

I've been on numerous flights the past few years on American, Continental and U.S. Scare where either weather or mechanical problems caused the flight we were on to be late, making it very real that we'd probably miss our connecting flight home. In fact, the last Continintal flight we took a couple of months ago to the East Coast we had to reroute through Chicago with a lengthy layover and then on to DFW for another layover before we could get home all because the initial flight had issues and was very late, adding hours to our flight time.

On these other airlines, they tell you pretty much too bad too sad when their issues cause you to miss a connecting flight. Today, Alaska HELD the connecting flight home to Texas knowing there were about 30 passengers on our plane taking it. And then sped us to the plane.

THAT'S HOW TO RUN AN AIRLINE, PEOPLE!

Our Stew today told us when we finally took off that the Captain had called San Jose and that they would hold our flight for us. I couldn't believe it but they really did. Outstanding job, Alaska!

So Alaska is going to get a lot of my west coast travel in the future.


Along with discovering the majestic wonder that is Alaskan Amber beer this week, I also discovered that Alaska Airlines kicks major rear in the customer service department. Sadly, Alaskan Amber beer is not available in Texas, unless via an online order, which is fixing to happen in a few moments. I'm an occasional beer drinker, but after drinking Alaskan Amber beer, I really for the first time found a tasty beer that goes down good that my body (.i.e. hangover central, even after one beer) likes as well. I've never been truly excited by a beer before, although having spent many musical drum playing nights in various bars and brewpubs and places that had several hundred different types of beers on tap or bottled, I've sampled a few different kinds of beers.


Prior to the Alaskan Amber awakening, I've tended to favor Coors Light, Lone Star, and Shiner Bock for the past few decades. If you wanna try some, you can find it in stores and bars as close as Colorado and Arizona. The Alaskan beer website has some companies that sell online and ship. I just want a mini-keg of the stuff to throw in the man fridge, but I'm pretty sure it's limited to bottles.

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