We had a great flight to New Jersey yesterday, by which I mean, as great as a coach-level commercial flight can be, so I want to send out a shout-out to Air Alaska. Not that the flight was perfect. In fact, we were already at the gate when it got delayed forty minutes by Air Traffic Control due to congestion in the NYC area.

AS gate personnel were very apologetic, even while they, like all airline reps, assured us the ATC delays weren’t on them. While we were waiting, though, they led a couple of games, each featuring a $25 airline voucher as the prize. The first prize went to the passenger with the oldest US penny–the winner had a 1959! The second went to the passenger with the most recent birthday. There was a tie between passengers born on April 9 and April 11, so two vouchers were awarded.

It’s always a good flight when the flight isn’t full, and this one was not much more than half full. For perhaps the second time ever, my strategy of booking my husband and I into aisle and window seats in the same cluster resulted in an empty seat between us, rather than the more usual result, me trading my window seat with the person assigned to the middle. Plenty of single travelers had their own clusters as well.

Someone in the AS cockpit apologized again when we were delayed nine minutes after we had already backed out of the gate. He implied with a deep sigh that we should have gotten a break given we had one delay already, and said we should be able to make up at least some of the delays since we had a “leisurely” assigned flight time. By this point everyone was enjoying the extra space and not too worried.

I have romantic views about air travel, and am one of those who think piloting a plane would never stop being a thrill. San Jose was crowned by a deep blue dome of sky, and from my window I was able to follow along as we turned onto the runway, powered up and soared into it. We climbed, first heading north, then made four successive turns that dipped the plane on my side, revealing SJ in all its sprawling glory, surrounded by first the Diablo range to the east and south, then the Santa Cruz mountains to the west with the Pacific ocean beyond, then the Bay in all its glory, which we climbed over as we resumed our northern track.

It was almost as if the pilot wanted to give everyone a view to remember.

The flight was uneventful, and the landing only about 15 minutes late.

Avis even upgraded his to a Yukon Denali, though this seems to be a mixed blessing. A running board and interior handle allow me to clamber aboard without pitons, and we occasionally find a parking space that both fits the car and allows us both to open our doors widely enough to disembark.

I realize several of the positive features I have listed were not controlled by AS. Fairly or not, reputations are often made–or destroyed!–by happenstance. Just as hanging around with a positive crowd seems to generate positive energy for the group when apart, flying with an upbeat airline seems to lead to travel contentment.