I wanted to spend a long weekend in Santa Fe, NM and luckily Alaska flies to Albuquerque nonstop from Orange County airport. The flight is operated by Horizon on an Embraer 175, which is one of my favorite planes. I was able to upgrade to first class for $50 on the day of departure. Considering that my luggage cost $25 without upgrading, it seemed like a good enough deal. At John Wayne airport, there is no lounge for Alaska, so I had to wait in the regular gate area. The flight ended up being about 45 minutes late, as the plane was coming from San Francisco. Most of these photos are from my instagram story.
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| waiting at the gate for my Embraer 175 |
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| Nice legroom in row 2, first class |
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| The Alaska Airlines Cars 737-800 |
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| Pushback |
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| United Airlines retro jet A320 |
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| American Airlines retro jet of defunct Reno Air |
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| Flying back over CA |
There was no first class meal despite the flight time being during dinner hours. We were given our choice of alcohol and lots and lots of snacks and fruit. The flight was only about 1:30 min long, which seemed quite short. With the time zone difference we landed well after 8:00p, then got our rental and drove up to Santa Fe.
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| Using a flight app while using inflight wifi |
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| old town Santa Fe |
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| me at the capitol building |
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| giant margaritas at Julia in La Posada hotel |
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| me at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya outside of Albuquerque |
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| Return flight was a daytime flight |
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| View from seat 2D |
The return flight ended up being pretty much like the outbound flight except it was in daylight. Instead of wine, I had coffee. The return flight was similarly about 1:30 long. We flew right over Phoenix and into OC.
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| Leaving ABQ |
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| Back in OC |
