The Air Show Attends An Air Show

Before you give us the big scoop about what you learned at the show, why don't you answer for us the most important question? I know you're dying to share.

How'd you get to London? This is

fun.

This is where aerospace reporter meets airline secret shopper.

This one was actually the first time for as long as I can remember, I had a nonstop flight from my home in Seattle to the show.

In this case, from Seattle to London.

Given the amount of time we've talked about Alaska starting their new service to Europe, I thought it would be a good opportunity to try it out.

I actually booked the day it went on sale, and a little of the seat map was fresh as the driven snow, so I get to pick my seat.

The flight to London is the company's second continental European route alongside Rome.

And it was really interesting to watch Alaska sort of roll into this transition as it aspires to be a global network carrier.

Full disclosure, this was a ticket I booked myself and I booked into economy initially and very quickly was offered a very reasonable upgrade to business.

So I got to try the front of the cabin.

Not a great sign for the profitability of that route, considering this was peak season.

Fair.

But what I would say is that when the upgrade upsell was offered, it had, I think, tripled by the time the actual flight came around and there were still seats available.

OK, so my return route was also an economy.

But because of my status, I had a first.

I had a legit waitlist upgrade to business class on an international long haul flight.

That is like never happened before on any airline.

And it cleared just as I was about to board.

It was really interesting.

The onboard product was really solid.

I have flown a similar route on Delta, on American, and on United, and it was on par.

The Hawaiian crews flying the route were really excellent.

It was really interesting to see the daylight between Alaska domestic and Alaska international.