A Side-Visit to Seattle

Last weekend I took a trip with the Delta codeshare partner Alaska Airlines. I enjoyed flying the 737-700 for a change. I will have to admit, the landing was less than perfect, but I guess that comes with being used to the 757 series aircraft. We boarding Alaska flight 311 (ASA311) to Seattle. I always enjoy laying over in Seattle, with all of its sites.


We boarded, and pushed off of the gate in San Francisco. The winds were coming out of the south fairly strong which closed the parallel runways 1/19 Left and Right. Here we are pulling out of the ramp on Hotel.

Ground then cleared us to taxi immediately across 1Left and Right, towards 28L for departure. On this shot we are parallel to 1R and taxiing abeam a British Airways 747-400 west of 1L. They are taxiing out, bound for London's Heathrow Airport.

As soon as we reached 28L we were cleared to position and hold, and promptly after cleared for takeoff. We lift off at 134 knots and rocket past the north side of the terminal.

We have been cleared along the San Francisco 8 departure via the Red Bull transition (SFO8.RBL). Here we are climbing in between cloud layers for NORMM intersection. There are numerous thunderstorms out here today, that we will have to dodge on climbout. The cruise today will be at flight level 400 (40,000 feet), keeping us well clear of the weather at cruise.

At this point NORCAL departure clears us to a radar vector of 010 to avoid thunderstorms on route before NORMM intersection.

We have finally climbed past, and dodged the thunderstorms in the Bay Area. Oakland Center now clears us on course for Red Bull VOR.

After a beautiful flight, we are beginning our descent into a cloudy Seattle. We are using the Olympia 6 arrival, and landing on 16L.

Here is a shot from the flight deck on our descent again. We are just about to head into the first cloud layer.

Alaska 311 is now on our downwind leg for runway 16L to Sea-Tac Airport.

Seattle Final Approach just cleared us down to 4,000 feet and turned us on our base leg well north of the city.

Seattle Final turned us through the Localizer for 16L due to some spacing issues, but here we are re-aligned for the left side. The Space Needle is in view on the right side of this photo. The area in its immediate vicinity is called Seattle Center, and is a beautiful area to stay in Seattle. The Puget Sound is a large part of Seattle's business. There are hundreds of piers in the harbor, and hundreds of fishing and crabbing vessels based in Seattle.

Here we are turning into the ramp after arrival.

ASA311 has now arrived. We are parked at the north satellite. This is my first visit to this side of the airport. Northwest uses the South Satellite which is very easy to get around.

The next day I was scheduled to fly ASA312, but the flight was cancelled, so my first officer and I caught a Virgin America A320 back to San Francisco. Stay tuned for that story!