u/Easy_Money_

From https://www.ookla.com/articles/worlds-fastest-in-flight-wi-fi

These numbers appear to include Starlink for both airlines, so probably lumps in regional carriers for Alaska. Spotted on r/delta after only 2.2% of data points collected on that airline were above 25 Mbps download + 3 Mbps upload

In my experience, non-Starlink Alaska WiFi is fast enough to work and stream around 75% of the time and completely unusable the other 25%, so this kind of matches up with that. I have a feeling people will have strong opinions on this one

Some of you may have heard that starting in March, Southwest will be significantly slashing interisland travel. HNL-OGG goes from 8x daily to 4x daily; OGG-LIH and OGG-KOA go from 1x daily to no flights. I wanted to compare Southwest's performance on these routes to Hawaiian's performance to see what justified the decision, and I thought folks here might find it interesting. Fares on these routes are usually pretty comparable across carriers. This is inspired by u/PNW-American-Dipper's frequent analyses.

Figures 1 and 2. Obviously, there's no getting around it: Southwest's loads on these routes are terrible. They're flying a 175-seat 737-800 and routinely filling less than 50% of the cabin. The worst performer is typically LIH-OGG. Hawaiian's best performing route is regularly ITO-OGG, but it's worth noting that it has the fewest daily departures and Southwest doesn't serve it. But for the most part, Hawaiian's 128-seaters are around 75-80% full, while Southwest's 737s are below 70% even during peak periods.

Figure 3. So this looks terrible for Southwest, right? Well, it might not be THAT bleak. Southwest might be okay with flying mostly empty 737s if they're getting around the same number of passengers per plane as Hawaiian. There are easier ways to describe this, but I chose to normalize the load factors as though Southwest and Hawaiian were both flying 128-seat 717s. It's a little simplistic, but in some months, Southwest is averaging more than 90% 717-normalized load factors: in other words, if they replaced every 737 they fly with a smaller 717, they'd get almost as many passengers as seats those months. Essentially, load factor might not tell the full story.

Figure 4. Supplementary: number of seats per carrier route per month. Naturally, HA HNL-OGG is #1, followed by HA HNL-LIH.

Figure 5. Supplementary: Southwest is a non-factor on cargo.

Notes. The data is pulled from t100tool.com, with a little trickery to pull data as a CSV and grab more data than the tool allows for. All route data is combined across both directions of a route (e.g. seats and passengers for HNL-OGG and OGG-HNL are summed). Load factors were calculated using `sum_passengers / sum_seats` for each grouping. 717-normalized load factors were calculated using `sum_passengers / (sum_departures * 128 seats)`. I am not in the airline industry, just an enthusiast who works in data science.

Press release with scheduled times and aircraft

Planning a family trip to a Tier 2 destination in China; Cathay is the only partner that connects there. I would like to fly SFO-HKG-XXX, and I’d prefer to use points (I’ve got plenty and it could be 4–7 people). But October 1, 2026 is the last day on the calendar that SFO-HKG is available via points. The nonstop still exists via cash, but the awards all connect through LAX. Does anyone know if this is a common schedule quirk? I won’t be flying until later next year, so no point calling Alaska; just trying to figure out my options.

Give me a Chester trophy, I had to spend a lot of coins heading to ANC for this!

This is a follow-up to my previous post about the April 2026 rankings (5th). Obviously trending in the wrong direction, though they remain 4th YTD thanks to a strong start.

13.25% of delays were due to “late arriving aircraft” and 8.93% were due to “air carrier delay,” both the worst among all airlines. Just 0.37% were due to extreme weather delays, lowest of the Big 4 (American led at 1.10%).

Southwest had the fewest cancellations of the Big 5 at 0.39% (American led at 1.52%).

Source: https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2026-06/July%202026%20ATCR.pdf

Source: https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2026-06/June%202026%20ATCR.pdf

Expected my SEA-ICN flight in AS Y to be much, much worse based on some trip reports on here. I’m relatively gentle on Alaska, but my wife is a bit harsher and we both agreed that this was perfectly satisfactory.

Food was actually quite decent, better than what I expect from JAL and Cathay catering out of SFO. Wife got the regular/Asian entrees, I got the vegetarian special meal (had to call in, CSR was unfamiliar with the process but very nice about it + figured it out in 10 min). The dishes were:

* bulgogi beef (pictured) - slightly salty but generally good, didn’t see the pasta option
* shiitake mushroom rice (V) - legitimately very flavorful
* tofu egg fried rice - also quite decent, our seatmate got the chicken orzo and said he really liked it
* vegetable noodles (V) - this was really dry and bland, by far the worst

For special meals in particular, I’m used to steamed veggies + rice + a salty, gloopy sauce, so this was pleasant. Salads, fruit, and rice crackers were fine. The chocolate cake and ice cream were good, and the midflight cookie service was an unexpected and decadent treat, felt borderline illegal. Adding some kimchi or pickled veggies would have rounded it out.

Heard a lot about the seats being horrible; maybe it’s because I got N783HA (relatively new) + extra legroom, but it was again fine. Slightly more padded than the JAL 787-9 I flew on most recently. The flight attendants were friendly, not fawning like JAL’s but attentive and a little jokey. Weirdest part was when someone asked a question about the beef and one unironically replied “I don’t know, they don’t let me try it.”

No WiFi was a little annoying but expected. The wooden cutlery was actually very annoying, wife got a splinter. IFE catalog had some nice HBO/Apple TV options but was nothing special. The jet was really quiet, even during takeoff. Cabin temperature got kind of warm by the end of the flight. Weird that they handed out arrival cards at the very start of the flight.

The biggest problem: boarding at SEA was a disaster. Conflicting information issued by the gate staff, throngs of people mobbing the passport checkers, no enforcement of boarding groups, way too many people to fill two N gates. Also a little weird that you can’t get passport verification done at SFO or the N lounge. Really weak start to the flight, and gate staff were very nice but seemed in way over their heads. Alaska needs to sort this out, it was super embarrassing to witness.

We got on the upgrade certificate waitlist at ~T-80, but the J cabin filled up by T-48. No luck there.

I personally think this sub has a tendency to overhype the economy experience on JAL, Cathay, and STARLUX. They’re fine, but Alaska was absolutely in the same league. There’s just not that much differentiation to be had. I’ll be returning in Korean Air business class, which I don’t think will be a fair comparison.

Edit: One thing I forgot. For a so-called flagship lounge, the food at the SEA N Lounge is really sad. SFO has been leaps better every time. A build your own pasta lunch does not cut it

N842AK had its delivery flight to OKC (is that common?) on Tuesday, May 19: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n842ak

N839AK had its delivery flight to LAX (that’s very common) on Thursday, May 21: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n839ak

N839AK is the third of six 737-8s Alaska expects to receive this year, and Alaska’s fifth new plane of 2026 after N784HA, N431SY, and N838AK. There are now 339 Alaska planes in service (including Horizon and SkyWest-operated frames; 405 including Hawaiian).