Flying for Fun

Yes, in both instances I received emails, although neither had a flight cancellation. The email outlined the old itineray, the changes and the new itinerary. In the APP you can refresh your itinerary by toching the circular arrows in the top right beside "reservation details." I do that periodically. If there are changes, a pop-up will advise that there have been changes.

James

anteater

Q: By not accepting the schedule change won’t you be lower on the upgrade list since you won’t be confirmed on the new flight until you accept said change?

Status > Fare Class > Time on waitlist?

A refund is probably more important than potential upgrade, though.

Flying for Fun

We are still confirmed on the same flights, just the times have changed and the outbound was downgraded from a 739 to a 738. With SEA-HNL on a 738 with 12F, it is unlikely that an upgrade with a companion is going to happen anyway. Effectively there are 10F with 1DF blocked and sales capped at 6. I am not too worried about it. When the flight goes to gate control, upgrades are by Elite Status & time on the waitlist, fare class is irrelevant. I believe that the original date of purchase follows to a new flight, but don't quote me on that! As a 75K, I am already confirmed in 6DF. Row 6 with a blocked middle & arm rest that fold up is perfectly fine.

James

xliioper

Business travel demand drops substantially around holidays and these flights are likely more business focused than other ones. Additional leisure demand may not compensate enough for drop in business demand on certain dates. Weekends and mid-week flights in particular see more limited business travel demand. Google Flights can be used to see which days a flight operates by selecting carrier and non-stop flights (EWR-SFO below). You can see flights do not operate on a number of weekend dates as well as some mid-week dates. Jan 2 and 3 are not shown, but they also fall on a weekend and hence no flights. Note that they haven't updated January schedule yet which begins on Jan 5th. There will almost certainly be additional cuts in January once updated schedule for January gets loaded.

sfozrhfco

In “normal” times these flights have a ton of demand during the holidays. Right now, New Years celebrations in Times Square are obviously going to be cancelled. AS also has consistently cut these flights since the pandemic hit so anybody that needs some flexibility with flights times and days has already abandoned them. At this point there has to be zero demand from NY based travelers whose destination is not SEA or a smaller market in the PNW.

When you cancel 10-15 flights over a single weekend and only have a handful of people to accommodate, you know it is just not economical to run transcons which are empty in both directions. Knowing as well that Q1 in every year these flights were among the weakest, I wouldn’t expect anything but more cuts through the winter on these routes.

pcoll

sorry, this is off topic.
I did not realize that Row 6 , on a 800, had tray tables in seat front and not in armrests. Really like that you can lift them out of the way. I booked flight for family members and may move them to 6 as it is a 6 hour flight. Is infant Allowed in 6?

tom911

Going to be very difficult for Alaska to maintain any NYC service from the west coast with today's update of mandatory pre-arrival testing PLUS a mandatory 3 day quarantine after arrival and retest on day 4.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/aud...ng-covid-19-16

NoLaGent

Wow. I applaud Gov. Cuomo for this, so smart. I'd be thrilled if Gov. Newsom does the same here in CA.

sfozrhfco

NY can do it because they have really increased their test capacity but it is not easily enforceable for those not flying or flying into another state and taking ground transportation to NY. This system is actually better for most people--especially New Yorkers as you only need to quarantine for a few days upon return and with negative tests before and after travel, you should be able to go on with your life taking the usual precautions. California is getting better--in the Bay Area it is quite easy to get a test--but in some other parts of the state it will take a few more months to scale the testing. That said, this month the 30 second tests developed by Israel and India should be ready to go which are very cheap. If the US government had its act together we should get those, test everybody quickly and open up travel more. The way things are going, we are more likely to end up like the UK having to shut down the whole country again. Seems like airline schedules for the foreseeable future will continue to be highly unreliable.

haddon90

what are the chances of more changes in the january schedule? i'm flying IAD-SEA and i just can't see AS keeping the three daily flights.

NoLaGent

The current schedule has only been updated through Jan 4th, everything from the 5th on is technically a placeholder, so I'd say close to 100%.

PDXPremier

I've said this before, but if you want to make a some-what educated guess about whether or not your flight after Jan 4th will be operating, check to see if it's operating in December. I purchased a less expensive PDX-MCO flight via SEA on a Thursday which is a red-eye in January that doesn't exist in December fully expecting to have it cancelled which will allow me to move it to the more expensive non-stop on the following Friday...I'm gonna miss these month by month schedule changes when this is all over

jiburi

I agree. While AS might make adjustments around dates of Inauguration, My guess is only two flights will survive, one to SEA, and maybe one to SFO. Luckily there are three nearby airportsb(BWI, IAD and DCA) to giving more flight options....

Jiburi

SF1K

Our previously cancelled flight which was then changed to HNL-LAX was then cancelled again. Now going HNL-SEA but had to leave a day later. Not super happy with AS accommodations during schedule changes
lately. AA has been much more flexible and easy to deal with. Although at least this tone they protected us in U space. On another one they refused so I cancelled the ticket and bought new ones in F on AA. On this last one the last leg from LAX to LAS was waitlisted F and I asked if they would at least clear that on the SEA-LAS since that’s a much longer flight and we are now out of pocket a nights hotel on Hawaii and they said no. A bit disappointed with the AS customer service experience as of late.

ab2013

I suspect that AS will load schedule changes for January (Post NewYears) sometime this weekend, maybe next weekend at the latest. DL loaded a bunch of cuts this past weekend.