Hadrian35

What could have been done for others was done for others. Sorry you expect a Christmas miracle but the agents did their job and followed procedure to get the flight off on time and chose not disrupt service for one person that can’t get to the airport on time. Despite what you claim about not deflecting blame to AS, you are defaming agents as a pack of grinches for your perception of not going above and beyond. To my mind, they brought holiday cheer to a Q400 full of people by not neglecting them for your daughter’s sake.

Points Scrounger

Seems like it was actually five people? I like to hear both sides of the story in these cases.

sltlyamusd

I don't know the full story here, but there is no reason to strand people if they can still make the flight without causing a departure delay. If the flight leaves with empty seats and 5 people stranded, that is lose-lose situation for both the airline and the passengers.

I think the problem at small airports is that the same agents are checking in passengers and boarding the flight, so after check-in closes 40 minutes out, the agents go to the gate to handle the incoming flight and there is no one at the ticket counter.

dave1013

Separate but related: there are two links referred to in this thread - the one that PV_Premier provided (which is stated in terms of arrival time at the airport) and the other which refers to minimum check-in times. The former is 60 minutes and the latter is 40 minutes.

The apparent difference (to me, at least) is that you should walk into the terminal an hour before scheduled departure and you must have checked in for the flight at least 40 minutes prior to scheduled departure. The former is not stated as a hard and fast rule; the latter is (by virtue of the use of the word "must").

Is this a correct interpretation?

For the record, I suffered a similar fate as OP's daughter five years ago when I presented myself at the check-in counter at JNU to check a bag for a flight to ANC. I got there at T-38 and they would not do a thing for me other than book me on the next flight. It is a hard and fast rule.

sullim4

Ding ding ding. FT'ers follow the soup nazi philosophy on so many of these rules rather than apply common sense. As long as the customer doesn't delay the flight, and they can find their way to the gate before the door closes and/or their seat has been given away, it shouldn't be a problem. Functionally speaking this is no different than a connecting passenger making a close connection.

However, I would agree with you that it's likely the check-in staff works the gate at PSC as well, and so the gate agent was probably justified in taking this stance. It would have probably helped had they actually explained this practicality to the passenger rather than cite policy, which only serves to annoy and antagonize the situation.

Points Scrounger

Could it be that the system cuts off check-ins at that point, with no over-ride feature, rather than that agents technically can do so,
but won't?

WestSideBilly

Man, you guys are harsh. I don't see how the daughter was in the wrong here, and deserves a hard lesson. She was at the check in kiosk > 40 minutes from departure, but the TAs had already left to become GAs.

It's pretty bad when the TSA has better customer service than your airline...

PV_Premier

you are correct. my interpretation of the PSC-specific page was wrong.

there may be some truth to this. i've arrived at a UA ticket counter at T-29 after a T-30 cutoff and experienced the same fate. i was carry-on only, there was very much an agent at the counter, and i was in no danger of missing the flight (it was at LNK with no security line). this was in the days before the mobile app, etc. with mobile boarding passes and ready internet access almost everywhere, there are fewer good excuses to miss the check in cutoff on domestic flights these days. if i haven't already done it, i now check in with mobile app on my 4 minute walk from the parking lot to the terminal security line.

jsguyrus

For what it is worth I flew yeaterday out of YKM. As would be expected this time of year the plane was FULL of inexperienced travelers and the AS (actually QX) agents had their hands full. Everyone knows the holidays are a difficult time to travel and you have to make allowances for things to go wrong (like ice on the road) and still be to the airport early.

In the case of YKM the agents had to leave the counter a little earlier than normal to deal with a large number of pre-boarding issues such as elderly and wheelchair bound passengers. There are only three agents to work the counter and the aircraft including loading and unloading baggage and de-icing. My experience has always been very positive but when they have to leave the counter to service the aircraft that is it, the counter is closed and does not reopen.

mattime

To appease the lawyer types, I don't think there's any question the passenger is ultimately at fault here. However, the computer system allows for check-ins past the deadline, so exceptions are allowed whether it's written down or not. Spite or laziness is not a reason to deny an exception. Flight timeliness reasons are. Could we agree on that?

I fly out of tiny PUW and have been on both sides of this. They have 3 employees. One strictly handles baggage, two process check-ins until boarding time. Then they split, one handles boarding while the other handles late check-ins and/or assists with the baggage. If they have the time to process a passenger, do it. Let's not make stuff up and say that the flight will be delayed by doing that. It takes 3-minutes to clear security and have butt in seat at PUW. Plus the check-in desk is 10 feet from the boarding podium. If the GA is legitimately busy with baggage/whatever, then tough luck. I get it.

In this case, there were 5 late check-ins waiting. It's process all or none at that point and I understand why they may have cut them all off.

Madone59

+1

Time is money.....literally.

PDXPremier

I will say this, if this were in the UA forum, nearly everyone would be on the OP side of things and blasting away at UA....I suspect it would be the same over in the AA or DL forums. With that said, this is the AS forum, and for whatever reason (justified or not), AS flyers are fiercely loyal to what they consider "their" airline.

With that said, AS is kinda "funny" (for lack of a better work) about check-in and boarding times....I've learned to build in extra-long connections in SEA since I know they like to start boarding 45 minutes and early and be in the air by departure time sometimes....once in JNU, my wife and I were checking-in (maybe around 45 minutes before departure) and got a sternly worded mini-lecture for the agent at the AS counter about the fact that "just because we are a small station doesn't mean that you don't have to check-in" 60 minutes early (or whatever it was at the time). Now that I'm use this, I just adjust accordingly and realize they WILL leave without me if I'm not there when I need to be.

BOB W

I got stuck at ADQ years ago when I tried to check in at 29 minutes prior. The rule is 30 minutes. No checked bag, so I thought I was OK. No dice. Weight and balance on a 737 combi flight was their reason. I guess my fat lump made a big difference. Lesson learned.

flymonthly

I'm with you. Since she was not allowed to check-in on-line and presented herself for check-in prior to the cut-off time (40 minutes), she followed the rules. Yes, she was not checked-in prior to the cut-off, but that is the fault of AS, not the daughter.

ashill

If she really was at the check-in counter prior to 40 minutes before scheduled departure and there was no Horizon agent there to check in, I would interpret that as being involuntarily denied boarding. If she was in line at 40 minutes before scheduled departure but couldn't get to the counter because of other people checking in, then it is her fault for not being checked in before the cutoff. As others have mentioned, the staff at those stations really do have to leave the check-in counters 40 minutes before departure to attend to their other duties.

OP, does your daughter have proof of exactly when she tried to check in and was denied? A time-stamped photo of the unattended check-in desk 41 minutes before scheduled departure would be very clear proof. (I know that it's a lot to ask a panicked traveler to think of that at the time.) If so, open-and-shut-case, and she (or you) should complain until she gets full involuntarily denied boarding compensation. If not, and she really was at the counter and trying to check in more than 40 minutes departure, it's still Alaska's fault. But if she didn't get to the counter until 39 minutes, I'm afraid she doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.

That is why the recommended airport arrival time is 60 minutes. At small stations, somewhat counterintuitively, you need a little more time for check in to be safe than you do at a larger station where separate staff handle check in. But running late certainly happens, and your family has my sympathies for the disrupted holiday.

The fact that there were 4 other passengers who also failed to check in makes me suspect that the Horizon employees did leave more than 40 minutes prior to departure, which is not acceptable. Alaska's computers could presumably check that by finding the timestamp of the last passenger to check in. Was it right at T-40, or was it at T-45?