First Flight of the Year
Mar. 5th, 2024 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goobergunchUnusually for me, my first flight of the year was paid for by somebody else—the City of Sunnyvale. The annual League of California Cities Planning Commissioner Academy is in Long Beach this year and so I hopped a quick ride from SJC to LGB.
The flight was short (about an hour) and fun—the load was light enough that nobody had to sit in a middle seat if they didn't want to. I had 14ABC to myself. The cabin crew kept it light, too—the purser had a good joke at the end thanking everybody for flying Southwest and not being able to afford another carrier. (Not like there have been many other options into LGB since JetBlue pulled out.) En route I had some nice views of the snowcapped Sierras, the Tehachapi Mountains, and Long Beach itself as the airplane turned out into the Pacific before turning to final approach.
Long Beach Airport itself was new to me, and it's always cool getting to add a smaller airport to the list. We deplaned via an outdoor ramp as the airplane got fueled up in preparation to continue to Austin, and while the actual gates, all nine of them, remain indoors, there's a decent length of outdoor walkway to get to them. Plus the immediate post-security area is outside with palm trees. It was a very pleasant way to arrive in SoCal.
The flight was short (about an hour) and fun—the load was light enough that nobody had to sit in a middle seat if they didn't want to. I had 14ABC to myself. The cabin crew kept it light, too—the purser had a good joke at the end thanking everybody for flying Southwest and not being able to afford another carrier. (Not like there have been many other options into LGB since JetBlue pulled out.) En route I had some nice views of the snowcapped Sierras, the Tehachapi Mountains, and Long Beach itself as the airplane turned out into the Pacific before turning to final approach.
Long Beach Airport itself was new to me, and it's always cool getting to add a smaller airport to the list. We deplaned via an outdoor ramp as the airplane got fueled up in preparation to continue to Austin, and while the actual gates, all nine of them, remain indoors, there's a decent length of outdoor walkway to get to them. Plus the immediate post-security area is outside with palm trees. It was a very pleasant way to arrive in SoCal.
