Review: Alaska Airlines 737-900ER First Class (SEA-MIA)

For the final segment of my quick review trip to Germany, I flew Alaska Airlines’ Boeing 737 first class from Seattle to Miami. I was thrilled when the airline launched this route in mid-2022, as it’s a flight between my current home and my former home (and my gosh, the cities are as different as they are far apart). By the way, at 2,724 miles, this is the farthest scheduled flight in the lower 48.

I figured this was also a good chance to review Alaska’s Boeing 737 first class experience. Alaska offers an excellent first class product, with more legroom than you’ll find on other airlines, friendly service, fast and reasonably priced Wi-Fi, and an above average food and drink selection. Let’s get into the review.

How I booked my Alaska first class ticket

I booked my Alaska Airlines first class ticket with cash. Alaska’s first class fares between Seattle and Miami start at $659, which is what I managed to book. While not cheap, I knew that upgrades would be tough in this market, and on top of that I’d be earning American AAdvantage Loyalty Points.

The flight I booked had the following schedule:

3/03 AS305 Seattle to Miami departing 7:35AM arriving 4:28PM

By the way, I love how Alaska’s flights to & from Miami have the flight number 305, which is Miami’s area code.

One other thing to mention. When I booked this flight, it was scheduled to be operated by a Boeing 737 MAX 9, featuring Alaska’s new first class seats. Unfortunately the plane for my flight got swapped to a Boeing 737-900ER. Alaska seems to use these jets totally interchangeably, and changes tail numbers assigned to flights even up to a few hours before departure.

So expect that a flight that’s scheduled to be operated by a 737 MAX 9 could in fact be operated by a 737-900ER, and vice versa.

Alaska first class lounge & boarding

In the previous installment I reviewed the Alaska Lounge Seattle, which my first class ticket gave me access to. My flight was departing from gate N14, just near the lounge, which was convenient.

Boarding was scheduled for 6:55AM, 40 minutes before departure, and that’s exactly when it started. First class passengers were invited to board first.

Alaska Boeing 737 first class cabin & seats

Alaska’s Boeing 737-900ERs feature a total of 178 seats, including 16 first class seats and 162 economy class seats.

Before I even talk about the first class cabin, I had a quick glance into the economy cabin upon boarding, since I was seated in the last row of first class (I assigned myself seat 4A, the window seat on the left side in the last row).

In the very front of economy, Alaska has four rows of extra legroom economy seats, which Alaska markets as the “Premium” cabin. These seats have 35″ of pitch, and as you can see, the legroom is quite good.

As far as the first class cabin goes, Alaska has four rows of seats in a 2-2 configuration.

While Alaska doesn’t have any aircraft with flat beds, the airline does have industry leading pitch in first class. Alaska has 41″ of pitch, which is way better than you’ll find on any other US airline. Most other US airlines have closer to 37″ of pitch, so the extra space is noticeable. This really makes a difference, especially if the person in front of you reclines their seat.

The tray table extended from the far armrest, and could be folded over in half, depending on whether you want a full tray or just room to place a glass.

The center console between seats also had an additional tray that could be extended, for some extra space.

The power outlets were located underneath the center armrest, and there were both USB-A and AC charging options.

The overhead console was modern, and had reading lights and individual air nozzles.

The overhead bins on this jet were also large, so that you could place bags sideways, to maximize space.

For a standard domestic first class product, this is about as good as it gets in terms of space. I do find the general design of Alaska’s cabins to be kind of funny.

On the one hand, they have the modern Boeing signature interior, with large overhead bins and mood lighting. On the other hand, the leather seats and bulkhead cabins give the cabin a decidedly classic feel. Furthermore, Alaska doesn’t have personal televisions, or even personal device holders, on these aircraft.

Alaska first class amenities

Waiting at each seat upon boarding was a box of water. Alaska exclusively uses boxed water nowadays, to minimize plastic. There weren’t otherwise pre-departure beverages, but personally I’m not as obsessed with pre-departure beverages as some other people.

Furthermore, there was a blanket waiting at each seat, though there weren’t any pillows. With many airlines having eliminated blankets in first class during the pandemic, I was happy to see this available. I don’t remember the last time I received a blanket on a standard domestic American first class flight.

Alaska Boeing 737 entertainment & Wi-Fi

While Alaska doesn’t have seatback televisions, the airline otherwise has pretty good tech nowadays. Alaska has Gogo 2Ku Wi-Fi on its 737s, and full flight streaming passes always cost $8. That’s a great deal, especially on a flight of this length.

On top of that, Alaska has a huge selection of free movies and TV shows that you can stream.

Alaska also offers free messaging on mobile devices.

Lastly, T-Mobile customers can receive free Wi-Fi on their mobile devices.

So for a total of $8 I had streaming Wi-Fi on my laptop, and then I had free Wi-Fi on my phone thanks to T-Mobile.

I found the Wi-Fi speeds to be fast throughout the flight.

Alaska Boeing 737 departure from Seattle

There are several things I noticed during the boarding process:

• The crew welcomed each passenger onboard with a big smile, and frequently complimented guests; that makes such a difference in terms of creating a positive first impression, and that attitude rubs off on passengers
• I was amazed by how many passengers were wearing masks, as I’d estimate that well over 50% of passengers boarded with N-95s on; I was kind of surprised to see that on a flight to Miami (heck, there were more people with green hair on this flight than people with masks on most flights I’ve taken out of Miami)
• Toward the end of boarding, a couple boarded out of breath, and joked that their first class seats were stolen; the guy ended up being seated right behind me in economy, and he explained that their inbound flight was delayed but Alaska still gave away their seats, so I was impressed by the positive attitude he had about the whole situation, as this isn’t a short flight to be downgraded on

At 7:25AM, the captain made his welcome aboard announcement, informing us of our flight time of 5hr5min, and our cruising altitude of 39,000 feet. A few minutes after that, the main cabin door closed, and we began our pushback. At that point a manual safety demonstration was performed.

We started our taxi at 7:40AM, and it was a pretty short distance to the departure runway.

We were cleared for takeoff on runway 16L at 7:50AM, just behind Alaska’s “Salmon Thirty Salmon.”

It wasn’t a particularly nice day underneath the clouds, but as usual, it was much nicer above the clouds. Sadly there were no good Mount Rainier views on this flight.

The seatbelt sign was turned off about 25 minutes after takeoff.

Alaska first class food & drinks

Once we reached our cruising altitude, first class flight attendant Ally came through the cabin to introduce herself and take meal orders. She also thanked both Mileage Plan and partner oneworld elite members for their loyalty — for example, I was thanked for being a oneworld Emerald member.

One other thing to note about meal choices. Alaska lets you pre-order meals in first class, but it works a bit differently than at American. Alaska’s website showed three meal choices a couple of days before departure, but one showed as unavailable, which I found odd.

At American there are no limits to the meal pre-orders, as they’ll cater the flight accordingly. I guess at Alaska there is a limit based on how much is ordinarily catered.

As you can see, the three meal choices were a fruit & cheese plate, apple cobbler oatmeal, and a sweet potato & feta omelet (which wasn’t available). I didn’t pre-reserve a meal since my preferred choice showed as being unavailable. By the time the flight attendant got to my seat, the only option was the fruit & cheese plate.

To drink, I ordered a cup of coffee, which was served with a couple of “sticks” of creamer.

The meal was served about an hour after takeoff. I was initially kind of bummed when I found out that only a fruit & cheese plate was available, but I was pleasantly surprised. There were two types of cheese, apple wedges, crackers, grapes, and a sea salt chocolate. On top of that, there was a separate fruit plate, some greek yogurt, and a bread roll. It was tasty and filling.

Later in the flight, Ally came through the cabin with a snack basket, which had a variety of options. I chose a KIND Bar and some toasted coconut cashews. Other choices included popcorn and turkey jerkey.

Alaska also has a drink list that I find to be much more interesting than you’ll find on American.

I remember that back in the day when I lived in Seattle and was an Alaska frequent flyer, I enjoyed the Crater Lake Hazelnut Espresso Vodka. I was happy to see that still on the drink list, so I decided to order that as a pre-landing “refreshment.”

Alaska first class inflight service

I find that service on Alaska is consistently a cut above service on American and United, and Ally, the flight attendant working first class, was no exception. She was genuinely friendly, constantly checked on passengers, and seemed to enjoy her job.

Even though Alaska is a big airline at this point, there’s something about flying with the airline that feels a lot less corporate and a bit more scrappy than on other airlines, and I like that.

Alaska Boeing 737 first class lavatory

While Alaska’s first class cabin feels more spacious than on other US airlines, the lavatory is unfortunately an exception. There was a lavatory at the front of first class, and it was extremely tight, and had an absolutely tiny sink. This is the new standard lavatory configuration for the 737, which is a real shame.

It’s one thing if just the lavatory were tight, but then on top of that you have a sink so small that you really can’t wash your hands without getting water all over the place.

Watching the country pass by…

Nowadays a vast majority of my travel is up and down the East Coast or international, and I do fairly few daytime transcon flights. So I just have to mention how much I enjoyed gazing out the window for the entire flight as we traveled from one corner of the country to the other.

The views were stunning throughout…

…and I particularly loved the views over Idaho, which made me feel like I was in Greenland, or somewhere.

I loved the views so much at this point in the flight that I had to look at our location on a map. It looked like we were somewhere between Boise and Idaho Falls.

Does anyone know if there are any roads, or anything, near the area shown above? Gosh, I’d love to do a road trip here sometime (though on second thought, I’m not necessarily the best driver in snow).

While the scenery eventually flattened out, it was still fun to look at.

Alaska Boeing 737 arrival in Miami

At 3:30PM local time, the first officer announced that we’d be landing in around 30 minutes, and would be starting our descent shortly. At this point we were just near St. Petersburg.

Suffice it to say that the views in Florida aren’t quite as inspiring as over Idaho (well, unless you’re one of those people who believes aliens are behind these planned community designs, or something).

Eventually we flew over the Everglades…

We were lucky to be landing into the east, which meant we could approach the airport without having to fly out over the water first.

It was really windy on approach, and we landed safely at 4PM on runway 9.

While our gate was only a short distance from where we landed, there was some congestion, so we had to stand on the taxiway for a bit. There was some fun traffic to look at, including of a Qatar Airways 777 and British Airways A380.

We ended up pulling into gate E6 at 4:10PM, nearly 20 minutes ahead of schedule.

While I had a great trip, I was excited to get home and see my family!

Bottom line

I had a great flight in Alaska Airlines first class. While I was initially bummed about the swap from a 737 MAX 9 to a 737-900ER, I still had a good experience. Alaska’s first class seats are more spacious than at other US airlines, and the airline has pretty good food and drinks, friendly service, and reasonably priced Wi-Fi.

It’s always a pleasure to fly with Alaska, and I’m glad I finally had the chance to fly the carrier’s new route to my hometown. With the partnership between Alaska and American, I hope to fly with the airline more.

What do you make of Alaska’s 737 first class?