Alaska Airlines’ new First Class Seat? Like a Luxury Car?

Posted By Jon Nickel-D'Andrea on Apr 18, 2020 | 6 comments

As we live in Seattle, Alaska is our hometown airline. Because we give a large proportion of our business to them, we’re also often flying up in the front of the plane quite a bit. This time last year Alaska announced that they would be releasing a new first class product.

Now that the new seat is rolling out on their planes, the question is… is the seat better or worse than before, and are they in line with their competition?

What Alaska said about their new Seat

I’m all for a new and refreshed look as seats can get worn out and styles change, but I think someone at the marketing department went a bit overboard with the new descriptions. From their website:

Ambient mood lighting with calming, cool blue hues developed by lighting and color experts to complement the human body’s natural circadian rhythm.

• Refreshed color palette from the updated bulkhead design to the carpet, bringing in neutral tones that are associated with relaxing environments against pops of Alaska’s signature blue. 
• Curated, onboard music program with a cool West Coast vibe that complements the relaxing and modern ambiance. 
• Cup holders throughout first class so that guests can multi-task while they savor a craft beer, wine, or cocktail and have full use of the tray table.

And what I think might be the BEST one yet…

Redesigned first class Recaro seats that evoke the feeling of both performance and comfort, like a luxury car.

Now, let me tell you that nothing about any first class seat on any airplane in the USA reminds me of a luxury car.

For a point of reference, we wrote about the old Alaska Seats here and here, and here’s some images for you.

The most comfy seat around!

An empty plane!

Alaska Sky West First Class Seat

The New Seat

So, what’s the new seat look like? Honestly, it’s not bad, but all that marketing jibberish is just that, jibberish.

Here’s the new seat with an adjustable headrest and cup holder in the arm rest.

Those neutral, calming tones…? Are you evoked yet?

Here’s a mesh pocket to store all of the things that you’re probably going to leave onboard the plane and find later on eBay.

Charing ports get an A+ as they have a separate charger for USB and a multi-port converter for other devices.

Legroom at the bulkhead is still abysmal and legroom in the other rows still requires you to play twister if your seat mate wants to leave.

I’ll also give them credit on the new design of the tray table. There’s a stand for you to place your tablet or cell phone to watch movies on their free entertainment.

While it might take a while for most of us to get back into the skies right now, hopefully this means that some of the airlines will take the time to retrofit and clean up some of their planes. Happy Flying, whenever that may be!