Meet the fleet: LIBERTY AIR 737-400 6ef1315

The shuttle. LIBERTY AIR’s polished-silver 737-400s with the red cheatline run the coast milk route — Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle and back — a rotation every hour, 146 souls a hop. If ALLIED is the flag carrier, LIBERTY is the bus service: always in the pattern, always on time, and always exactly in your way when you’re boresighting a bogey over the Bay.

THE AIRCRAFT — Boeing 737-400 · length 119 ft 7 in · wingspan 94 ft 9 in · two CFM56-3 turbofans · cruise Mach 0.74 · range about 2,060 nautical miles · 146–168 seats · first flight 19 February 1988, in service the same year — the stretch that kept the classic 737 line relevant into the nineties.

Where to meet her: low and slow over the Peninsula, gear down and flaps out on a long straight-in. The easiest intercept in the Bay — and the most expensive mistake if you get trigger-happy.