Originally Posted by aviators99

His last two paragraphs are the ones I was looking for: That diverting would have been worse (even for someone willing to drive), and that they are working on trying to make sure this doesn't happen in the future. I really hope that is true.

I hope that CO can be more creative as well, and not just try to solve this with the port. Barring a comment to the contrary, I am assuming that the reason Alaska Air wasn't contacted was political, and this should not be a reason for trapping passengers in an airplane for this amount of time.