Alaska Airlines Sneaking Milk Runs Into Their Seattle-LA Options

Inside Q400

We took my mom home from Seattle yesterday.  I have to say, it didn't quite register when I made the reservation and it said it stopped in Santa Rosa.  I was looking at departure time and price.

We've been flying between Anchorage and LA for over 30 years now and the Seattle - LA flight has almost always been non-stop.  A few times there was a stop in Portland.  But now it seems Alaska Airlines is listing a bunch of their local flights (via Horizon Air) as Seattle-LA flights among the options.  We flew in a little Q-400.  But it took 4 hours from Seattle to LA (including 30 minutes in Santa Rosa.)  It will only take 5 1/2 hours to fly to Anchorage non-stop from LA Tuesday. 

I've been on small planes like this for short trips - like Chicago to Cleveland - but this was a long time to be on a small plane.  And when we landed in Santa Rosa we were tipping and bouncing a lot as we got close to the ground, but we landed ok, with just one bounce.

[UPDATE 5:30pm Alaska Time:  On Alaska's behalf, they would say, I'm sure, they are giving people more options.  After all, you could get a flight from Anchorage to Juneau that stops in Cordova and Yakutat.  But those are on 737s and they don't increase the flying time so much.  Yes, I could have thought this through a little more before booking the flight, but it was such a change from what I'm used to that I didn't think about it.  This post is simply a warning to others to pay more attention than I did.]