San Jose, CA: Norma Y. Mineta International, San Jose, CA (SJC) on my way out

Norman Y. Mineta San José International Airport

I arrived at 5:09a; on the drive in, I noticed that they were expanding the other terminal. This is much needed as the facilities at Terminal C just plain sucks! You can see the improvements here at this link. It boggles my mind that only Southwest, Mexicana and American/American Eagle uses Terminal A the moment while all the other eight airlines crowd into Terminal C which is quite the zoo; but I digress. Oh, if you are using this airport, you may want to check this page for construction updates.

The check-in lines did not seem too bad at all, but the airport was busy. I cleared security by 5:15a without any incident, except for a really slow guy in front of me.

The flight information display had 22 entries which represented 16 flights due to codeshares. The earliest was Delta Air Lines’ (DL) 6:00a to Salt, Lake City, UT (SLC) and the latest one at 9:23a on Alaska Airlines (AS) to Seattle, WA (SEA). What was funny was that there was a flight listed as QX2452 to Portland, OR (PDX) at 7:00a and I don’t think that Alaska Airlines lists the codeshared flights with Horizon Air (QX) as QX flight numbers, but as AS flight numbers. At the gate, it did show that QX flight number as well.

As I walked by Noah’s New York Bagel, I noticed that the line was quite long. As I waited for the flight, I noticed that the lead flight attendant was the same one as the flight on Friday day night.

At 5:30a, the agent made an announcement that if you had checked in online, you need to come to the podium to verify that your seat was O.K. The reason for this was that they do not have a scanner at the gate. She also announced that all passengers on the standby list should approach as they were all cleared as well. The two announcements brought about ten or so passengers to the counter.

When I showed my boarding pass at the gate, they did have a scanner, but I guess it was not working.

We walked out to the covered temporary walkway to the plane; it was quite windy and it sucked that it was taking a time to board so we had to stand in the cold for a bit. The lady commented to me that it was good that it was not still raining. I could see an US Airways A319, a JetBlue A320 and a United A319 at the hardstands.