How Do You Book Intra-Alaska "Milk Run" Flights?
 

Do any of you have experience booking "milk run" flights between ANC and SEA? For example, I wanted to book AS 62 which is a direct flight from ANC-SEA, but it stops in JNU, SIT, and KTN...unfortunately, it doesn't show up online during an ANC-SEA search and trying to use multi-city gives me the usual error message since it's all the same flight number. Is it possible for an agent to book it over the phone? I'm MVPG so not worried about telephone booking fees.

Part of the reason I wanted to book this other than the "fun" aspect was that there is U space on every segment so I thought it would be a good use of a gold upgrade cert :)

Sometimes these runs (particularly ANC-JNU via Cordova and Yakutat) use the 737 combi which, of course, lack a first class cabin. Your best bet on the flight you want is to probably call directly since I've had experience with the website not providing all options.

try doing multi trips ANC-JNU and JNU-SEA. It usually shows up some milk runs that way

I tried doing ANC-JNU and JNU-SEA on multi trips....it shows flight 62 for ANC-JNU but won't show flight 62 as an option for JNU-SEA. I've noticed if the flight # is the same, alaskaair.com generally won't let you book them as two separate segments.

You can book JNU-SEA on AS 64 (JNU-PSG-WRG-SEA).

I acknowledge what you said above - and - try booking two tickets, ANC-JNU and JNU-SEA on 64. Maybe you can have the experience with that itinerary. Plus I don't think beckoa's been to WRG yet. :D

JNU-SEA on 64 is a combi plane on the date I'm looking at and I did the SEA-JNU version of that trip a few summers ago....it was fun, but I would have liked to have been able to get off the plane at each stop for a few minutes, even if it was just inside the terminal (which they wouldn't let us do, not even in KTN which has a more traditional terminal building that doesn't force you to leave the secured area). Also, even if 64 wasn't a combi plane, the time between the arrival of AS 62 from ANC-JNU and the departure of AS 64 is greater than 4 hours which would require 2 upgrade certs instead of one.

Has anyone ever been able to get AS 62 ANC-SEA by calling?

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

My first visit was after a bump- asked to be put on the milk run ;) (had a stop in JNU where I rode the bus around).

I've also walked across half of PSG- took the redeye ferry from KTN and halfway from the port to the terminal it started to pour- a local stopped and gave me a ride ^

No CDV or YAK yet- maybe a future DO! :D

-posted from the Gold Coast Center. I think the Company Store just opened ^

Try it. You have nothing to lose.

I've always been under the impression that you cannot book ANC-SEA milk runs, you have to do either SEAT-KTN and KTN-ANC seperately.

The first time is maybe interesting, but be prepared for little service and lots of sitting around on the tarmac waiting because of the short flight times between KTN/PSG/WRG/JNU. It's not until until the JNU-ANC that a full service is offered. Some prepackaged juice and pretzels are sometimes offered between KTN-STK.

The second/third/ gazillionth time you really start to dread milk runs.

I've never done a full run SEA-ANC but have done most milk run flights in sections. If the weather is good (or even when it's bad sometimes) it's quite the scenic flight. Highly recommend it.

For booking a single flight number your best bets are calling in, not sure if they'll actually book it but you can't do it online in one reservation. Or booking separate reservations online, but that would cost two certs. Hang up and call again if the first agent balks at booking it, might need to suggest splitting it up so they look for SEA-JNU and then JNU-ANC.

And they almost always ask you to stay on board, but I've never had a problem getting up and asking the FA if it was OK to get off. Just be prepared to go through security again depending on the airport, and have your ID and boarding pass with you.

friends in IT at Alaska said they inhibit booking those via Alaskaair.com as to maintain ample seat availability for those of us in Southeast Alaska - especially since for many it is the ONLY flight south or north (ie - CDV/YAK/PSG/WRG).

Missy - any truth to that?

I'm not able to pull it up in Matrix as a straight through, even specifying a single flight number.

yep :)

Thanks Missy for confirming that....so it sounds like it's a no-go on alaskaair.com but could be booked over the phone with reservations so that's what I'll try when I get ready to book.

its probably an issue of the system thinking its not enough connection time rather than an issue of same flight number.