The system has no way of knowing they are 16. You booked them on an adult ticket and that's all it knows.
Further, the only real way to avoid this is to get them on the same PNR. The linking only works for linking 2 tickets. Not 3 or more or anything else.
In a situation like this sometimes the best way is to get something going north, to anywhere...whether it is SFO, SJC, Sacramento, Boise Spokane, etc. and then migrate over. You gotta get out of the LAX nonsense. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.
Originally Posted by
stephem
A luggage loader smashed into the baggage door of AS1315 this afternoon which was supposed to fly my wife, kids and some friends from LAX up to the Portland area. It was clear as day that the damage was not trivial, and you don't have to be a mechanic or a flight supervisor to know that damage to doors can be catastrophic if not fixed properly.
So I called Alaska right away to check on other options for them while they waited in the airport, Not surprisingly, there were not many good ones so my wife decided to wait it out. What happened next is typical of Alaska, they would get to the new boarding time and crickets. Not even a "well, we know we were supposed to board now and we're not so that time we gave you for take-off is no longer valid, we will update you when we have more information." They did this twice.
So I called again and noted that when Alaska cancelled the flight (which we all knew at that point was going to happen) they were going to dump a couple hundred passengers into a route that is already booked nearly full for the week and that was going to be mayhem. Let's just say that by the time they got our PNRs together the late evening AA flight was booked solid, and as we were attempting to grab seats on any nonstop AS flight tomorrow, AS 1315 was officially cancelled and tomorrow's inventory was gobbled up with auto rebooking.
The best auto rebooking I have ever seen I might add, with various kids ranging from 12 to 16 years old put on flights from various LA area airports to Portland on varying days later in the week. This despite linked reservations and elite status for all the family members (I raise this only to note that other carriers do tend to manage a family of elites, even on separate PNRs to make sure they get rebooked together, some even give a call to figure out what you want to do). I suggested to my wife that she head to the elite check in counter outside security and while the agent was helpful, there was nothing left for tomorrow and so they have to travel on Thursday instead. Luckily, we live in LA so this is just a matter of beach day tomorrow for them. But Alaska's systems are terrible, both for the lack of up-front notification and information that would have allowed us to just rebook manually in advance (and probably fly on the American flight tonight) but also for the rebooking. I mean who makes an algorithm that allows a group of linked passengers who are under 16 to be sent to 3 different airports over 3 days? Carol Beers from Little Britain would be proud of that booking!