Alaska First Class Seat

I'm thinking of booking discounted first class seats on the SAT-SEA NS for our cruise this summer. I've heard that the F product is not so great in the -800 after the recent reconfiguration. Any opinions?

If you mean the new planes with Boeing's "Sky" interior? No, I've heard the opposite. They've also changed the IFE setup with streaming video (complimentary viewers in FC) rather then the old digeplayers.

I mean, it's still a 737 with conventional domestic FC seating, not some lie-flat suite or whatever, but a pretty decent hard product, and always good-to-excellent service.

It's been about 3 1/2 years since I flew in first on Alaska, so I really can't comment on the 800's, as they didn't have them then.

I do remember it being a very positive experience. We had wonderful, very comfy seats with oodles of room and like an earlier poster said, great service from a smiling and friendly crew. I wouldn't hesitate to book with Alaska in first class on flights that are long in duration.

I did just that about a month ago because of a round-trip with 3 very long segments and got a decent price for this September. Just checked back a couple of evenings ago and the round trip as I picked it had already gone up over $200. Glad I booked when I did.:)

Good luck and have a great trip!

The Alaska hard product in the 737-800 (aka "738") is similar to most other US domestic airlines in terms of space and size. No real difference.

Service may be better than some, worse than others, probably better than most. Same with food.

You're talking about what, a 4.5 hour flight? If that? In the daytime?

I would go ahead and book it if you are interested in a little more leg room and seat width. Don't expect the type of space/seat/service you would on a long haul with an international carrier and you'll be happy. Expect a five course gourmet meal, shoe shine service, in air shower, and Belle Epoque and you'll be terribly disappointed.

I don't care for the 737-800 FC section. We paid $50 each when we did our online check in and I wished that we hadn't, as we gave up the second exit row, with endless legroom and full recline, for it. If you have any status that qualifies you for the exit row (I don't believe that AS upsells them to non-elites), then I would go for that instead. If not and the price difference isn't extreme, then I'd probably go for FC because it's better than the usual coach seat.

The seats seem tighter, they weren't as comfortable and the storage was terrible. I can usually put my backpack under the seat and still have room for me feet, but that wasn't the case on this plane. There's a fair amount of chatter on flyertalk.com and I was far from being alone the last time I checked (which was over a year ago).