Southwest 737-800 | CVG-DEN |
Flight Information
Origin: Cincinnati - Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG/KCVG)
Destination: Denver International Airport (DEN/KDEN)
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800 (N8565Z)
Airline: Southwest Airlines (WN/SWA)
Flight Number: WN313
Date: October 19th, 2024
Flight Time: 2 hours, 23 minutes
Seat: 12A
Server: Ultra-Maxiumum Expert
Hello from CVG! After a fun filled day and a half in Cincinnati/Covington, it’s time to head home via Denver. Our first flight of the day, WN313, will take us over to Denver onboard this Southwest 737-800. In typical Southwest fashion, the aircraft type wasn’t solidified until about half an hour before the aircraft departed for Cincinnati. It was initially a 738 when I booked the flight, but 2 days before departure was switched to a MAX (yay!). Late the night before the flight, they swapped it back to a 738. Bummer, but whatever. The morning of the flight, I was thrilled to receive an aircraft type swap notification from Flighty, who informed me that our plane was now a MAX!. About 2 hours later, I got another notification that our inbound aircraft was delayed and switched BACK to a 738. It all worked out in the end, and our chariot to Denver was this 6 year old Boeing 737-800 (N8565Z).
Honestly, I won’t be too sad to see Southwest’s open seating go. I get why people like it, and how it’s very efficient, but it does add a layer of stress and tension to the boarding process. I had position B10. There were two women (one B12 and the other B13) who started bickering when B13 was ahead of B12. It’s one number, and not that big of a deal, but you can see how it can be a stressor.
I was a bit concerned since B10 is pretty far down the list, but I was able to snag 12A, which has a stellar view of the engine and leading edge of the wing. We were parked next to Frontier’s Sheldon the Sea Turtle, who was preparing for a hop down to Houston. The seat is fine. Nothing super special about it. The padding was OK, nothing to write home about, but definitely better than what you’d get on Spirit or Frontier. Legroom was decent, but again, nothing too special. I was a bit disappointed to find there was no in seat power outlets. They are being added (all their MAXs and some of the 737-800s have them), but it does have them trailing a bit behind the competition like Sun Country.
We pushed back 18 minutes late, and made the quick taxi out to Runway 27 for takeoff. If you look closely just in front of the tower, you can see the Trump-Vance campaign 737. I think in the 2020 election the Biden-Harris campaign and the Trump-Pence campaign’s aircraft were about even, but in this election, the Harris-Walz plane’s livery is far superior to the Trump-Vance one.
Takeoff was swift and smooth, and we were soon crossing the Kentucky - Indiana border as we made our way up to our initial cruising altitude of 36,000 feet.
As we climbed out, the flight attendants started making their way through the cabin for the onboard service. The crew was very attentive, and made a point of making small talk with passengers as they passed by. I got just some water and the complimentary snacks (not sure why the image is sideways), which were Maui Monk pretzel twists and the classic Remi’s Graham Crackers.
Hot take - flyover states are cool. I love seeing the patchwork of farmland and different patterns of crop growing. You can start to pick up on subtle differences. For example, as we were flying over Indiana (where the vast majority of farmland is dedicated to corn) you can see more square croplands, with a lot more homogeneous coloring. As we made our way over Eastern Colorado, where the primary crop is wheat, there’s a lot more circular crop pattern work, which apparently is best for wheat irrigation.
Anyways, the flight was pretty smooth at this point, as we crossed over Illinois. I connected to the free texting WiFi, which worked fairly well. My dad paid the $8 for the browsing WiFI, with the intent of getting a bit of work done, but it didn’t work at all. The Safari homepage wouldn’t even load. Southwest has a fairly robust selection of movies and TV shows, but I chose to pass the time by reading.
Over Nebraska, the seatbelt sign was activated, as the pilots were expecting a choppy ride until landing.
As we drew closer to Denver, the captain came onto the PA. He was going to host a huge Family Feud party for Thanksgiving and enlisted our help with getting answers. The prompt was “favorite cold weather/holiday meal,” and we were supposed to write it down on a napkin. Like a true Minnesotan, I chose hot dish. Bet nobody’s gonna get that one though.
It was only a bit rough coming into Denver, no big deal. Pretty typical for Colorado.
We landed right on time in Colorado’s capitol city. After a relatively quick taxi in, we parked up at gate C41.
Routing
Takeoff Video
