There are few things better than spending a nice summer day watching major league baseball, but for the people of Oakland, that privilege is about to go away. It’s the end of an era, and some of my baseball-loving friends and I decided to make one last pilgrimmage to say goodbye to the Coliseum and the Oakland A’s before they leave town at the end of this season. It was a quick trip on Southwest, but it was a mixed bag of an experience.
This was always planned as a day trip. We just had to find a day game on a weekend, and then we’d be all set. It turns out that June 8 with a 1:07pm start against the Blue Jays was the best option. But what about flights? We’re all Long Beach locals, so we wanted to fly from there, but the return times just weren’t great.
If you figure the game is over at 4, anything after about 5:30pm would be playing it safe. There was a 6:20pm to LAX but we’d have to wait until 7:45pm to get back to Long Beach. There wouldn’t be much traffic on a Saturday night, so we went with LAX. To make it even easier, I plunked down $53.99 to be able to park in the Terminal 1 parking lot. For a day trip, it’s a no-brainer. After dropping 10,410 Rapid Rewards points plus $11.20, I was ready to go.
The crew of five met up at my house at 8:30am, and we drove up to LAX. When you buy parking via the LAX website, it asks for your license plate number. Once we pulled into the terminal 1 garage, the screen flashed with a “welcome Brett Snyder” after reading the plate. No scanning of codes or anything needed. That was slick.
The airport roadways were really busy that morning and the garage was fairly full. We parked on the roof and then headed toward security.
The checkpoint was virtually empty, but security was an absolute mess like I’ve never seen before. Four of us had TSA Precheck, so we got in that line. Only one of us had a bag with the rest of just needing a place to dump our personal belongings, but there were no bins to be found. We asked someone if he had any bins. He looked at us, sighed, and then closed the metal detector while he went to get something. A couple minutes later, he dumped this out:
The last person with us had Clear but no TSA Precheck, so she got to the front of the already very short line, and then she waited. I have no idea what took so long, but even with our bin issues, we were done and waiting for probably 5 minutes if not more before she was able to get her shoes out of the machine. For long periods it seemed like nobody was working that machine at all, so nothing was moving.
We walked to our gate, 12A, which is the first one you see on the west side of the terminal. Our aircraft should have been there, but it wasn’t, so we went over to Rock ‘n Brews and had a Bloody Mary to start the day.
I don’t know what was going on, but the airplane seemed to be in the penalty box. It eventually blocked in 14 minutes late at 9:34am. Our depature time had crept a bit along with that delay, but I was surprised to see absolutely no attempt to hurry things along. Maybe the agents were looking at the sign which said we were still on-time.
There was a pilot standing at the podium for awhile talking to the agent. Then nothing happened for awhile. Finally, they called for boarding to begin, but there was some delay as they preboarded someone in a wheelchair who had some boarding pass issue. We weren’t in a hurry, but it was frustrating to watch this unfold so slowly.
The five of us had booked travel separately, so we had scattered between A38 and B38. This required strategizing about how we would get seating. It was all so unnecessary. It’s time for assigned seats on this airline.
The two of us in the A group boarded first and went behind the wing to try to reserve a row.
Southwest 150June 8, 2024
From Los Angeles➤ Scheduled Departure: 955a➤ Actual Departure: 1023a➤ From Gate: 12A➤ Wheels Up: 1035a➤ From Runway: 24R
To Oakland➤ Wheels Down: 1127a➤ On Runway: 30➤ Scheduled Arrival: 1120a➤ Actual Arrival: 1132a➤ At Gate: 23
Aircraft➤ Type: Boeing 737-76N➤ Delivered: June 29, 2001 to Kenya Airways➤ Registered: N7884G, msn 30133➤ Livery: Hot Dog on a Stick
Flight➤ Cabin: Coach in Seat 17A➤ Load: 97% Full➤ Flight Time: 52m
This airplane has seen better days. Delivered in 2001 to Kenya Airways, it joined the Southwest fleet in 2016, and it clearly hasn’t seen a paint job since then.
The airplane just felt ancient with the old bins, dull yellow lighting, and awful seats that make up the aging 737-700 fleet.
We headed back and each stood in an aisle seat across from each other, blocking others from entering — not that they tried — until our whole party had shown up. This stressed my friend out greatly.
Once together, we had three on one side and then I was with my tallest friend on the other. The airplane was mostly full, so when someone showed up, he moved into the middle. I thought he was crazy for not just keeping the aisle, but he didn’t care for such a short hop.
The seating on this airplane really is terrible, but oh man is it so much worse if you’re 6’4″. Just take a look at how uncomfortable this must have been for him. (The other legs are mine.)
We lost fourteen minutes on the turn, pushing back just shy of half an hour late. It was a longer than usual taxi since runway 24L is being rebuilt, so we had to head west a bit before backtracking to get to runway 24R. We were up through the low marine layer quickly, and we took a right turn to make our way up north.
The flight attendants did the usual service with drinks and graham crackers, but I passed on everything. We descended into Oakland as the marine layer had begun to try to clear.
We walked over to the BART station and took the short but very expensive $7.10 ride to the Coliseum. The concrete monument was looking sad as usual, but it was pride day, so the rainbows flooding into the stadium made it feel a lot less drab than usual.
The game itself was awful with the A’s being shut out 7-0, but that’s ok. None of us are die-hard A’s fans, and we were just there to enjoy the experience one last time. After all, where else can you enjoy the experience of a trough in the mens room?
Seriously, I love a good trough in a stadium. It’s all about throughput, and nothing beats the throughput of a trough. Of course, this isn’t an issue for the A’s these days, because nobody shows up. Announced was attendance was around 9,200 which is actually decent this year.
When the game finished, we lingered around for awhile, slowly walking out, knowing we had time to kill before the flight home anyway.
As we walked back to the chain-link covered bridge that goes over sad tidal channels, warehousing, and just general bleakness over to BART, we stopped. In addition to the obligatory hot dog vendors, there were a couple of guys just selling beers out of a cooler. Why not?
As it turns out, bridge beer is the best beer. We just hung out for a bit, slowly making the walk back to the BART station, enjoyed the afternoon sun which had finally poked out from behind the clouds. With the beers done, we split up. Four of us headed back to the airport to fly home that night. After dropping another $7.10, we were back but we still had time to kill.
Security was again pretty empty, but those analogic machines are so slow. On the other side, the three of us with TSA Precheck gave up waiting for the Clear person, so we just told her to meet us at the bar. Our choices were the now OAK Clubhouse — it was supposed to be A’s-themed but no longer — in Terminal 1 or the Drafthouse over at the far end of Terminal 2. We opted for the Drafthouse.
One of us — absolutely not me, to be clear — is a huge Dodger fan, so we watched the Yankees game until it was time to go. Also, AEW wrestling was one another TV which is remarkably stupid yet also slightly entertaining.
Our airplane was coming from Chicago, and it was 15 minutes late. Once again everything felt like it was going in slow motion.
As usual, we had a line of wheelchair passengers who magically didn’t need a wheelchair upon arrival. Did I mention Southwest needs assigned seating? It was all just so slow. though we only lost 3 minutes on the turn this time.
Southwest 4027June 8, 2024
From Oakland➤ Scheduled Departure: 620p➤ Actual Departure: 637p➤ From Gate: 24➤ Wheels Up: 645p➤ From Runway: 30
To Los Angeles➤ Wheels Down: 740p➤ On Runway: 24R➤ Scheduled Arrival: 745p➤ Actual Arrival: 747p➤ At Gate: 18A
Aircraft➤ Type: Boeing 737-8H4➤ Delivered: May 12, 2018➤ Registered: N8570W, msn 36952➤ Livery: Hot Dog on a Stick
Flight➤ Cabin: Coach in Seat 24A➤ Load: ~95% Full➤ Flight Time: 55m
Walking on to a 737-800 at Southwest is like walking on to a different airline. It has the big bins, the Boeing Sky Interior lighting, the more oval windows that sit higher, better seats, and more legroom. My tall friend’s legs show significant improvement:
We ended up taking row 24 in the back, but once again the flight was pretty full so we ended up doing two and two and sharing the row with another person.
The two chatty ones were over on the other side, watching the Dodgers game. My friend next to me took a nap, and I leaned up against the window to relax and watch the spectacular scenery the entire way.
Once in the air, we circled around over San Francisco as usual, but the light just hits different during the late afternoon.
We made it to altitude, darting through thin cloud layers that, when parted, continued the stellar view.
The flight attendants came by with drinks and salty death mix, but on our side of the plane, we passed. Our friends, however, kept the party going and had a beer.
At one point, the Dodgers hit a grand slam, and my friend screamed and clapped, waking up the whole plane, including my friend next to me.
On the way into LAX, the marine layer had begun to roll back in again, but I did get a semi-ok photo of Sofi Stadium and the new Intuit Dome.
We had a quick taxi and parked at the end of the concourse where I had a heck of a winglet view as we waited for the slow people to get off in the rows up front.
We walked back to the car and again the gate magically opened, letting us head home after a great long day of baseball.
