sfozrhfco

If you need to travel book out of SEA. There is no point in going through contortions getting onto a flight out of PAE when the chances of it operating are highly unlikely. If you want to travel for fun from the new airport, you are going to have at least one month notice from the time the government opens to the time it will even remotely be possible for PAE to open. The longer the government is closed, the longer the lead time to open it.

missamo80

This is Flyertalk, of course that's why I want to fly the flight, as do many others We had seats on the original inaugural flight. Alaska announced a new (subject to government approval) inaugural flight. We should be on it. I'm not currently, neither are others who used to be, and there is no clear statement from Alaska as to why that's the case.

Neil

CDKing

You booked a flight that just happened to be the first one. Now its not because its not government approved. AS is also giving more advance notice than Swoop did when their government approval did not come in time.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/swoop-fails-to-get-regulatory-approval-for-u-s-flights-more-than-20-trips-cancelled-1.4142287

rustykettel

CalanMan

I think missamo80's expectations and frustration are both valid here. He booked himself on the inaugural flight before it sold out. It seems like Alaska set up a new inaugural flight for 3/4, and started moving folks from the original 2/11 inaugural flight onto the new one, keeping it blocked out so it would go to those customers instead of new ones. (This worked correctly for me.) There is also a flight a bit earlier in the day PAE-PDX, which isn't open to revenue customers. The person who rebooked him, asked which of the two he wanted to be on, and of course he said the earlier one. Now everyone on that PDX flight has been moved off, making it again unavailable to revenue customers. But instead of moving him back onto the true inaugural, they moved him to an SEA flight, and now he's locked out of the PAE party, as if he hadn't been one of the first to book on the day the inaugural went on sale.

Hopefully he'll be able to get in touch with someone at the airline who can look at the whole history and see that he's one of the folks that the new 3/4 PAE-LAS flight is blocked out for.

vgc

This whole thing is one big mess... I'm hoping to be a part of the inaugural party (I certainly paid a lot of money for it...)

missamo80

Ok I have answers.

1. The PAE-PDX flight is a positioning flight and was not meant to be bookable by anyone. It isn't the inaugural flight, PAE-LAS is. The Portland flight never should have been on the blog, and I never should have been able to sweet talk my way onto it. The blog post's been updated and no longer mentions the PDX flight.
2. The PAE-LAS flight isn't bookable online because Alaska knows that people booked the Feb 11th version because it's the first flight. They are trying to re-accommodate everyone on the new inaugural flight. I just broke things for me when I called in (rather than waiting to be called) and cancelling/attempting to re-book.
3. I am now back on the PAE-LAS flight and all is right with the world.

Neil

PVDtoDEL

How did you get your answers? I called in and they told me my only option was to take a refund.

missamo80

I spoke with someone in their social customer care team who actively researched it for me.

If you were on the original PAE-LAS flight on Feb 11th you should be able to get on the PAE-LAS flight on March 4th. You weren't rebooked on it?

Neil

PVDtoDEL

I was on the original PAE-PDX flight, and was rebooked SEA-PDX. No discussion of LAS when I spoke to the supervisor.

missamo80

Ok you're in a different situation then. PAE-PDX wasn't the inaugural flight, PAE-LAS was. Alaska isn't offering PAE-LAS to people unless they were on it for Feb 11th. Since you were, essentially, booked for a normal flight that got cancelled your choices right now are refund or fly out of Seattle.

Neil

PVDtoDEL

I'm in a funky situation, and I actually think it's worse than y'all who were booked on the original PAE-LAS. As I posted about on the original thread, there was a PAE-PDX leaving before PAE-LAS on 11FEB too:

Paine Field (PAE) Tickets on Sale

I set an ExpertFlyer notification on it, and eventually a few seats opened up, so I switched from PAE-LAS to PAE-PDX. The flight is meant to be for employees and journalists, which is why they aren't selling tickets on the new date, but I can't get anybody in the call center to put me on PAE-PDX on 4MAR, nor can I get anybody to put me on PAE-LAS because on 4MAR because it's a destination change.

CalanMan

Excellent news! Thanks for sharing what you found out.

I did something similar, which is how I got on the PDX flight. I always knew it was suspect, since they'd opened up F, but no P and no Y. Just F, and then a few seats were sold, and then they closed it down again. Always seemed like opening it was a mistake.

I know in the other thread we were speculating that the PDX flight was for VIPs/employees/journalists, but did we ever have confirmation of that?

sfozrhfco

missamo80

Which is fine. I don't care *when* it flies, I care about being on it *when it does*.

Neil