thepinenuts

Unfortunately this will probably become more common as the Hawaiian Islands are moving west at approximately 1-2 inches per year because of tectonic plate movement, lol. Just say'n, saw this info at the Aquarium on Maui.

pinniped

I've had a few diversions over the years. From what I understand, the difference with this one is that they know they're going to sometimes need to do it because of seasonal weather patterns and known limitations of their aircraft.

A bit different than your typical severe weather diversion and either closes an airport or creates the need for an unplanned fuel stop. In this case, I think AS should at least provide something as a goodwill gesture - vouchers, etc. - since they know this is periodically going to happen. A primary reason I've selected AS for Hawaiian flights in the past is because it's a nonstop. I'd be less likely to book a SEA-KOA flight with AS if it publishes a stop in some other west coast city.

CZBB

My understand in the CO case was this, and it's quite different from AS (who 99+% of the time file flight plans straight to Hawaii)

For most airlines there's a fuel calculation that looks something like this
fuel to carry = (fuel to destination + fuel to alternate + 30 mins) + 10%

What CO were doing was instead of filing EDDT-KEWR (TXL-EWR) non-stop, they would always file EDDT-CYQX (TXL-YQX/Gander); which is almost exactly along the route.

When approaching CYQX they would re-do the math from their current location, and that 10% buffer to destination is now 1/2 what it would have been had they filed KEWR in the 1st place. If they now show that they have enough fuel, they'd re-file the flight plan mid-air with a new destination of KEWR. If they still didn't have enough, they'd simply land at CYQX (original destination) and top up.

Passengers were able to show that on a regular basis they had no intention of ever planning to go KEWR direct, and had a complaint on the basis that the flight was advertised as non-stop. I think they got somewhere but it was paid out long before it hit the courts.

The AS to Hawaii is quite different, because
a) they're not re-routing mid-air
b) the percentage of flights diverting is pretty small

RaginPlainsman

SAN-LIH had to make a refueling stop in SJC yesterday (2/11) due to headwinds, presumably from the storm that blew through the islands Sunday. Got us a 3 hour delay thanks to that being the aircraft for LIH-PDX.

beckoa

Ha.

On LIH-PDX right now (just boarded) and we *should* be ontime.
Our aircraft started in OAK this morning however.

thepinenuts

My mom was on SAN-LIH on 2/13/19 and they did a top off at OAK before they headed out to LIH.

tatterdema

I had friends on the inaugural flight, BLI-KOA 2 years ago. It had to stop at PDX to top off. It was almost exactly 1 hour late, and the $100 voucher per person was emailed before they landed. Just because of that data point, I would be surprised at only $75 for being 3 hours late.

drewdawg199

SAN-KOA and SAN-OGG both stopped in OAK for a fuel stop on 2/14. I was booked to KOA, but would have missed my connection to OGG (booked KOA to use a GGU), and luckily got Alaska to switch me to the OGG flight. At least we made it to OGG, after over 10+ hours on the dumb 737-800.

sea_jeff

I hope that others who experienced delays/reroutes get some compensation for the inconvenience. I got nothing. Oh well. $75 ain't gonna change my life.

The gesture or an email apology would have been appreciated. If they would have served a cocktail while we were on the tarmac for 45 mins in KOA waiting for a gate that would have been good enough for me.

I made it a point to choose a non-stop. Didn't get what I chose? Not really. Is it a federal case? Of course not.

Choosing a connection would have improved my chances for an upgrade and cost less IIRC but I had an appointment 3 hours after my scheduled arrival time. Obviously missed that.

Weather happens. That sucks.

How it is handled - that is up to the airline. It would have been nice at the very least to have received a text update that we were being diverted rather than learning at the gate. Nada.

RaginPlainsman

Following back up on this, we heard from AS today after sending an email to Customer Care. In addition to a nice note of apology, they provided a $250 credit for each of us and asked for our hotel receipt for the night we ended up staying in PDX since we arrived after the last flight to SEA that night, so we might get some reimbursement for that, as well. We are quite pleased by AS's response to this delay.

AKLifetimeFlyer

And deal with multiple cancellations and delays instead? No thanks.