sergad

I fly SEA-KOA on a regular basis and had never been diverted although I was aware of the fuel stops in OAK. I was surprised to receive this email 2/12:

Unusually heavy headwinds today will require us to make a mainland fuel stop in Portland en route to Hawaii, which will result in a delay of your flight arrival. Our airport teams and flight crews are working hard to keep you updated and minimize the impact to your travel plans as much as possible. Please visit alaskaair.com for updates on your flight arrival time.

How much could diverting to PDX help? Little did we know this would turn into one of the worst flights possible. After one hour on the ground in PDX, we were informed the lavs not working . Mechanics managed to fix that. We push back and sit. Pilot informs us one of the onboard computers is blank. We push back, another hour and change. Finally we take off, 6 1/2 hour flight time. Door close to opening over 10 hours. We were given the pre-printed $100 off your next flight certificate and another certificate for 2000 mileage plan miles. F/C flight attendant ran out of white wine 1 hour into flight (weight restriction?!) No meals for purchase available for the last 10 rows of coach, ran out of food (again weight restrictions?!). Luckily there weren't any serious confrontations, but a lot of unhappy travelers.

Quintious

Jet stream has been particularly strong of late. I fly the SEA>SAN>SEA route a lot and it's been noticeable - although the headwinds usually come on the Northward journey, not South. I'm no expert, but it sounds as though they didn't take that into account when determining how much petrol to put on the plane in Seattle. Better to figure it out late than run out of juice in the ocean. Or possibly it was just a ruse to keep people calm to the fact that, after takeoff, something serious was detected.

Not excusing the poor experience (I feel for ya, have been there), but keep in mind the alternatives, heh.

PDXPremier

Interesting...I've always wondered if the ANC-HNL route was subject to headwinds and if they ever have to go ANC-SEA/PDX-HNL....I think it's the longest of the Hawaii flights for Alaska, correct??

PDXPremier

SEA-PDX mainline AS...reminds me of the 90's

ANC RED-EYE

I think they stop in Sand point or Cold Bay...now I'm going to have to check...

ETA: well, I can find no evidence for my wild claim. I swear a friend had told me some of the AK - HI flights were having to make technical stops this winter...maybe not.

PDXPremier

Interesting...I'm assuming it's ANC-HNL, not HNL-ANC, correct? Has anyone had a OAK fuel stop coming FROM Hawaii?

ANC RED-EYE

the compensation is almost laughable. Sure, the headwind issues I'll count as an act of God - so fine, technical stop and weight issues. However, they probably could have managed the weight issues a little better. I would think water and wine could have been catered at near capacity, and they could have scaled back on the soft drinks.

beckoa

ANC-HNL is the shortest Alaska-Hawaii flight
ANC-OGG is 2nd longest
ANC-KOA is the longest, and longest route in AS' system.

But there seems to be more headwinds ex- West Coast of Hawaii...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alask...ns-1-10-a.html

Also fun

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...sion-ever.html

Finally

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alask...iversions.html

ANC RED-EYE

Interesting, as King Salmon barely shaves any distance off! I thought I'd heard of some diversions this January, but see none on flight aware.

Snowdevil

What should it have been?

formeraa

Well, I guess the option is Stop in PDX or Run Out of Fuel.

Stop in PDX is an absolutely viable option (yes, sometimes 50-100 miles can make a difference in the world of long overwater flights). I'm not sure what so incredible to the OP that a stop in PDX might be necessary. AS did the fuel calculation and it happened that the plane need 50 miles more worth of fuel than it could carry. Thus, a stop in PDX becomes necessary.

Second, there was a mechanical issue. Sorry, stuff happens sometimes. They gave you $100 + 2K miles. For AS, that's pretty good. I suggest that the OP looks at the contract of carriage to see if they are due any more than that.

Just for the record, I've had delays of over 8 hours going to HNL due to various reasons on other major carriers. And I received NOTHING! It seems to me that the OP needs to graciously accept that they now have one of THOSE travel stories, enjoy the vacation, and MOVE ON.

Chugach

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I was going to say, I thought I remembered AS using AKN as a tech stop on ANC-Hawaii.

pdx1M

By the way - lest folks really think they are about to fall out of the sky with empty tanks - these preplanned diversions generally come from legal requirements. These are conservative and smart requirements so not suggesting they shouldn't be there. But to actually understand why a diversion occurs, particularly in an ETOPS situation you'd need to look at the legal calculations rather than how much fuel is in the tank when you land. Mainland to Hawaii is one of the most difficult ETOPS spans in the world since there are no places to divert over that stretch at all and no routing that would make the diversion envelopes smaller. Furthermore, if you do take an engine failure you will be flying at a much lower (read much less fuel efficient) altitude. Put all that together with the legal requirements and you get what you see here. The rules are there to make sure things come out ok even when lots of stuff goes wrong (winds stronger, halfway out an engine fails, etc.). As for me - I'll take the fuel diversion rather than the "swimming" part of Engines Turning Or Passengers Swimming (ETOPS).

ANC

they have stopped in King Salmon before

ANC

me too ^ and most likely with an ocean landing there wont be a whole lot of swimming going on