SFO Ops - UGH
 

Sitting on AS 421 (SFO - SEA) right now, sched departure 17:10. Boarded like clockwork at 16:30, all done by 17:00. Then we sat and sat, and the FA comes on and says we are ready to go but we are waiting on pilots that are en route from Seattle and scheduled to land in one hour.

So, delays happen, but why the heck did we board when it was clearly known that we’d be delayed by at least an hour? Cmon Alaska.

Maybe they don't?

Funny, I had a rather different delay experience @ SFO on Sat.
Flight to PDX was delayed an hour apparently because the crew had timed out.
AS put a beverage cart (self-serve) out at the gate while we waited.

At least you didn’t get rerouted to SJC like AS is famous for doing at SFO.

That's my pet peeve with SFO ops. It often appears obvious that there are delays coming because the aircraft is still a distance away, or in your case, the pilots aren't there. If it's that obvious, they should be transparent with the information, and definitely not board a plane to make folks sit for an hour.

This happens a lot with the SFO-DAL route with Embraers when there is fog or heavy rain at SFO and not at SJC. The E’s can land at SJC so AS will switch airports to keep the birds flying. I appreciate that AS wants to get the flight and minimize any on ground delays, out but the additional 40 min drive to SJC is not easy to accommodate when you’re driving down from north of the golden gate.

"don't ever connect at SFO, *especially* if there's an RJ involved" is one of my three rules for living.

40 minutes SFO to SJC? Maybe at 3 am ;)

:) Come to think of it, I have long wanted to try the Monterey Airbus.

They love to do this when the weather isnt that bad for the Palm Springs and an PAE flights too. The whole thing makes me want to avoid AS at SFO more and more.

Since none of the routes I fly are ERJ-only, I just avoid the ERJ flights when booking out of SFO. Have never been diverted to SJC or OAK on mainline. Not saying it can’t happen, but seems to happen most often with ERJs.

Interesting. Thanks for posting this. I'll keep this in mind.

Mainline flights do divert. RJs are first obviously (fewer people to inconvenience/reaccomodate). Only caveat is so far I haven't seen any Airbii to OAK; if you're on one you're likely going to SJC if you divert. At some point presumably they'll schedule them into OAK (and will then be able to handle diverts) but they haven't yet.

This must happen more often than I thought. They have a whole page devoted to it - https://www.alaskaair.com/content/tr...ng-to-bay-area

and https://www.alaskaair.com/content/tr...-from-bay-area

You all get me nervous. If I have a 6AM PDX-SFO (737-9) flight is it less likely to be significantly delayed/diverted due to the early departure? (I'm assuming it's early enough where ATC won't be too backed up yet on a foggy morning).