Originally Posted by
princeville
This one doesn’t surprise me, actually. AS has a lot of departures between 11pm and 2am. It wouldn’t surprise me if this is the busiest time of day for ANC. In >20 years of visiting my parents there, almost all of my flights have arrived and departed around midnight +/- 2 hours.
Since it’s pretty predictable they should disclose that there’s no access after 9pm (or whatever works for them) June-August so PP members can manage expectations. I’ve learned to not plan on having access at my home airport. Once in a while they surprise me but I agree they should leave PP if they can only offer sporadic hours.
I looked at the board: Alaska has about 5 flights that leave out of ANC in a 3 hour period after 10 pm. Can a lounge not handle 5 (narrowbody) flights? I actually went back twice to see what was going on. At no time did the lounge reach 50% occupancy. I pointed out the vast sea of empty seats to the agent, and she said they don't include "scattered" empty seats in their calculations -- apparently the whole lounge needs to be open for them to admit PP guests.
Obviously, if they want to run their lounge at 50% occupancy, that's their prerogative. But they shouldn't be in Priority Pass. It did suck to arrive at 9:30 pm for a 2 hour layoff and be surprised that I had no lounge access. Last week, there was no problem getting in at 9 am.
Coincidentally, I was also denied entry into an Alaska Lounge at SEA this month that looked way less than half full. It was morgue-like in there. But I wasn't completely surprised, given that I had heard of PP "problems" at their SEA lounges. And there are other lounge options at SEA. At ANC, you're sitting around a gate if you can't get into the Alaska Lounge.