Through April, I routinely got mobile boarding passes for departures from YLW/Kelowna. (After the Trump administration-mandated security questions started early this year, the security contractors would do their quiz at the gate and put the sticker on my passport before boarding.) The last two times I've checked in, I've had to go to a kiosk. Today, I got the message "You are all checked in for your flight. For security reasons, you'll need to get your boarding pass at an airport kiosk." both through the web and the app. I don't think it's SSSS; it wasn't last time (out of YYJ/Victoria). I asked Alaska about it on Twitter, and they said
This adds about 15 minutes to the time I need to allot at the airport, both because the entrance from the parking lot is right by security but it's a 3 minute walk each way from there to the ticket counter and the check-in lines can be a bit long. (At YYJ, the kiosks were disabled because you had to wait in line to talk to the security contractors; the kiosks were outside the area roped off for the questioning.) Obviously not a huge deal -- YLW is still a very convenient airport -- but frustrating and, as far as I can tell, unnecessary.

Has anyone else gotten a mobile or web boarding pass recently out of these airports? Presumably it's Canadian airports without US Customs preclearance.

ETA: see below: this was SSSS for one member of the traveling party, which always requires getting a paper boarding pass at the airport on any airline. There were others on my flight with mobile boarding passes and print at home boarding passes, so no apparent policy change.

No.

I too have NEXUS and Global Entry (just got NEXUS; have had Global Entry for years; Known Traveler Number in the reservation and I always get PreCheck). I don’t care about mobile boarding passes once I’ve gotten a paper boarding pass; the reason I care about it is to skip the ticket counter, a factor which makes me comfortable aiming to arrive at the airport 50-55 minutes before departure (versus 70 when checked in but without a mobile boarding pass given the 60 minute check in cutoff time).

Hopefully this is just a two-times-in-a-row glitch, but Alaska’s Twitter response makes me fear it’s a change.

It turned out that SSSS was a factor here; the one of the three of us on the reservation without NEXUS had a lucky day. SSSS of course always inhibits mobile boarding passes, so maybe there isn’t a policy change after all and my YYJ inability to get a mobile boarding pass last month was a one-off thing.

The security questions are required by the Trump administration for all international flights to the US, though airports with US Customs preclearance may be an exception. Have you ever flown Air Canada to the US from an airport without preclearance? (I can’t thibk of any AC flights to the US without preclearance. They don’t fly to the US from YLW for sure.)

Westjet allows mobile BPs out of YYC, YEG and YVR on US-Bound flights. Not sure why AS doesn’t allow it; but the folks in Calgary the other day said it was an “equipment” issue there. Whatever that means.

Thankfully AS is never that busy at the Canadian airports so the paper BP thing isn’t too long. Never takes more than five minutes at YYC, IME.

On a somewhat related note, I had SSSS on my AY HEL-SFO flight and the Finnish security officers were exceptional. The whole process took about three minutes and included several jokes from them about the TSA.