Summer Schedule Cancellation Problems
 

Well my Labor Day AA partner award reservation (partially booked on AS metal to DFW) has been frozen and I cannot make any changes to it anymore do to Alaska's delay of serivce to DFW. I am traveling at peak times on Labor Day weekend and I have planned my trip WAY in advance, to the minute, with layovers and everything. No changes are allowed on my ticket anymore as they are negotiating with several airlines to pick up service. I am certain AS corporate is dragging their heels in the whole matter. I need to switch to AA metal but of course the peak times are gone. My blood is boiling right now imagining AS giving me some crazy flight times with returns at 6 am or a random 4 hour layover somewhere and telling me that this is the best the can do so I better take it because I won't get anything better.
When I first called, an alternative outbound flight was available on AA, but AS said they would first look into switching both flights and contact me after the weekend. Well no phone call, no one knows anything, my reservation is frozen even though it is an AA partner award, and now even that alternative AA flight for the outbound is no longer available for miles. I pray that this works out but I feel pretty pessimistic right now. Hmmm, I wonder what the record is for screwed up vacations in a single year? :mad:

As an Alaska employee, I can say that over 8,000 people are affected by these changes. Even worse, one of the new (contracted) rampers "bumped" into a plane with a tow and that took the plane out of service for the better part of a year. I feel awful because a couple of routes are now canceled for the next two weeks. Most routes are sold out for the weekends and thousands are inconvenienced. They can get a refund, but they can't get a good fare on another airline because the fares are too high this late in the game. Even worse, the 4th of July weekend is coming up and there is nothing to reaccomodate passengers on. Whatever they get, they get.

I've never seen it this bad before.

Alaska needs to step to the plate;
 

My flight changes have been minor. But after reading this forum the last few days, I am seeing that many people have many significant issues. The capacity level of alternative flights is also having an issue on the rebookings. Alaska is offering refunds, but people have made plans in good faith and are now screwed by Bill Ayer's (and his management team's) poor planning on this one. Very sad.

I hope someone out there is letting Ayer know the pain his poor planning is causing on people. Seems like Bill Ayer needs to be rattled a bit to step to the plate and be accountable.

Here are the rumors.

1) The airline is going to get run into the ground. Alaska files for bankruptcy, gets federal funding and all of the union contracts are null and void. Alaska ruins their reputation, but they can rebuild as a "low cost carrier."

2) Once the US/HP merger is final, Alaska buys them with the largest control over the three. Alaska comes out on top.

3) Bill Ayer will "step down" by the year's end.

Yes, it is sad. People are pissed to say the least. Customers as well as those employees who have to deal with the customers. Reservations is basically Marine Corps boot camp. They're getting yelled at constantly.

Give me a break....the people who make up this board are too intelligent to engage a troll.

Even more so those who are intolerant of conflicting opinions. Very intelligent response flytoeat. :rolleyes:

ASemp - welcome to FT.

• AS has admitted they have reliability problems and are taking steps to fix them.
• Passengers on cancelled flights are rebooked or offered refunds. This is within the contract of carriage and consistent with other carriers.

What else does do you expect? A private jet to accomodate your schedule?

Here's a quote from another message board from a cruise passenger. How many of these are going unmentioned? The synergy of the schedule changes and the terrible state of phone access to the airline is very troubling.
(My bold)

I don't know enough to say anything conclusive on the issue, but the weight of the anecdotal evidence right now points to an intentional employee slowdown this summer to protest management actions such as going to contract rampers at SEA. Although the chronic delays that forced the schedule changes could conceivably be Ayer's fault, in all honesty it seems more likely that it's the line employees' fault.

Is there any industry in American history that has consistently had worse management-labor relations than the airline industry? I cannot think of a single legacy airline that has not gone through one or more periods of significant employee discontent. Either airline managers are a-holes across the board, or airline employees have unreasonable job expectations, or both...

I must be incredibly slow at catching on, but what kind of logic is at work here? Drive away all, or most of, your paying customers by delivering a shoddy, unreliable service and then have NO jobs at all ... I just don't get it.

True in a technical sense, but not true in a practical sense. AS route network is much, much smaller than most other carriers, so the damage is likely to be greater. Combined with the fact that AS chose to cut limited-service routes (e.g., SEA-MIA, SEA-DFW) where there are few alternatives that don't severely impact one's schedule.

I'm surprised they didnt' choose to drop some SEA-ANC/SFO/OAK/LAX/SNA/LAS/PHX high-frequency flights, where the max damage to one's schedule would be a couple hours or rebooking to an alternate airport instead of a trip-destroying alternative.

Imagine if AA cancelled a DFW-SEA, or UA a SFO-IAD, or CO an IAH-LAX. The impact would be so minimal due to the variety of alternate options, that it wouldn't even be postworthy.

(First sentence was deleted -- not relevant to discussion.)
The point here is that AS should have had alternatives ready for the passengers or, at least, a coherent policy of when the re-bookings would occur (e.g. if you're traveling in the next two weeks, we will re-book you on the spot. If you're traveling in two to four weeks, we will re-book you by June 20th. etc.).

Amazing to see "the last of the great airlines" totally disintegrate in such a short period of time. As Gordo might say, from "first to last" in less than a year. WOW! :(

People pretty much want that. Everybody expects some sort of compensation. I talked to a girl yesterday...her flight was "pre-canceled" and she was reprotected on a later flight that was too late. I offered her an earlier flight that got her in at 9am. Because of this her life was ruined since she had to sit around for about 6 hours with nothing to do in Denver and she had a new-born baby to take care of. She wanted some type of compensation.

--

And flytoeat, thanks for calling me a troll, but I'm just being honest. Why else would Alaska cancel flights starting the weekend of the 4th of July holiday? There have been work stoppages every time a contract is being negotiated. The pilots just took a 20% pay cut (after they turned down an 11% cut, they let their contract negotiations go to arbitration) and those working on the ramp were just let go. The recent cancelations are due to the pilots being pissed. One pilot had over 40 light bulbs replaced. It took so long that the flight was eventually canceled because of crew rest. They don't care. We have routes that basically force people to fly us. There are going to be more decisions in store that the both customers and employees do not like. It's never been worse. This airline is being run into the ground.

It isn't logic but a response to conditions. I think most agree that AS had a good reputation just a couple years ago even with the financial outcome of 9-11. What has happened since? Fleet was outsourced. Ramp was locked out with many AS employees having the opinion this was strictly union busting without a good faith effort to bargain (and many of these ramp employees had friendship, marriages, commitments to other AS employees), CSAs have been forced tremendous amounts of mandatory overtime and have had their shifts modified to less desirable ones, staffing has been poor, pay and benefit cuts implemented, programs implemented with little training at peak times (TANGO), and the general attitude by management when things go wrong it's because the employees didn't put forth the effort (which can be seen first hand by a management AS employee who posts frequently at FT.)

It's hard to be motivated when conditions like these exist. Management is to manage all aspects of the work environment - they aren't doing a good job at it. While the front line employee's response may result in the collapse of the company the cause of the dissent is hardly in their control.

Try beating your dog on a regular basis and then wonder why he doesn't wag his tail when you come home.