A message from Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci: Getting back on track
#61
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: LAX
Programs: MVP100K, A-list, Marriott/IHG Plat, CHP525 Ticket Plat, CHP Solo Carpool 100K, Costco EXP, Tinder 1K
Posts: 820
AS cancelled my families Sunday SEA-SMF 6PM flight just before noon. Rebooked for Mon 11am. Found Sun flights on SWA and DL. Supervisor I spoke with couldn't find the DL flight. She mentioned AS doesn't have access to all the DL flights with their interline agreement. No agreement with SWA. Wife and I missed work on Monday and had to take a vacation day. Kids missed school and exams (1 missed 2 exams and the other 1 exam). This was late March before the April implosion. AS really couldn't do much for us. 100k and all 4 of us in 1st class. We were willing to fly coach back on DL on Sun but AS didn't have access to the Sun DL flight. So AS may be willing to book you on another carrier but they might not have access to available flights. The DL coach tickets were $1800, the ones on SWA were even higher. I have rebooked travel away from AS until Sept. If summer doesn't go well for AS I will rebook those on other carriers. Qualified for 75k at the end of March but may skip 100k this year. Have status on DL, AA, WN, and F9. Oh I have matched star alliance Gold with ANA as well.
Good luck this summer all AS flyers, hopefully AS gets their act together.
Good luck this summer all AS flyers, hopefully AS gets their act together.
Next time something like this happens, my suggestion would be rebook to OAK/SFO/SJC, then either rent a car or take a train back to SMF. At least that way you can reach SMF by Sunday night.
If they have no direct flights, fly to the closest airport with decent rental car inventory and ground transportation, that way you can still reach your destination that day.
#62
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Over the Bay Bridge, CA
Programs: Jumbo mas
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#63
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Mountain Time Zone
Programs: AS Million Miler/Marriott Lifetime Titanium/ IGH Ambassador
Posts: 5,992
#64
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Sacramento
Programs: AA MM, AS MVP Gold, Hyatt Diamond, Hilton Diamond, SPG Gold, FPC lifetime Plat, Kohls MVP
Posts: 547
Next time something like this happens, my suggestion would be rebook to OAK/SFO/SJC, then either rent a car or take a train back to SMF. At least that way you can reach SMF by Sunday night.
If they have no direct flights, fly to the closest airport with decent rental car inventory and ground transportation, that way you can still reach your destination that day.
If they have no direct flights, fly to the closest airport with decent rental car inventory and ground transportation, that way you can still reach your destination that day.
Good idea. I was so focused on flight to SMF I didn't think about that. I was already thinking about booking hotel and extending my Hertz rental (which I really did not want to do given their issues with reporting cars stolen when customers extend rentals). Thanks.
#65
I've been cancelled 3 times the last month on my usual SFO-JFK. First time, we were actually on the plane and told to get off on a 11PM flight. The last 2 , I was notified the day before and was able to rebook on the Alaska app. I am flying SFO-EWR tomorrow night and have not received any notice so fingers crossed.
#66
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Over the Bay Bridge, CA
Programs: Jumbo mas
Posts: 38,654
AS cancelled my families Sunday SEA-SMF 6PM flight just before noon. Rebooked for Mon 11am. Found Sun flights on SWA and DL. Supervisor I spoke with couldn't find the DL flight. She mentioned AS doesn't have access to all the DL flights with their interline agreement. No agreement with SWA. Wife and I missed work on Monday and had to take a vacation day. Kids missed school and exams (1 missed 2 exams and the other 1 exam). This was late March before the April implosion. AS really couldn't do much for us. 100k and all 4 of us in 1st class. We were willing to fly coach back on DL on Sun but AS didn't have access to the Sun DL flight. So AS may be willing to book you on another carrier but they might not have access to available flights. The DL coach tickets were $1800, the ones on SWA were even higher. I have rebooked travel away from AS until Sept. If summer doesn't go well for AS I will rebook those on other carriers. Qualified for 75k at the end of March but may skip 100k this year. Have status on DL, AA, WN, and F9. Oh I have matched star alliance Gold with ANA as well.
Good luck this summer all AS flyers, hopefully AS gets their act together.
Good luck this summer all AS flyers, hopefully AS gets their act together.
With respect to WN, it just doesn't accept endorsed tickets from other airlines. With its recent participation in the major GDS providers, it is geared up to do so should it choose to at some point. Other airlines are probably inhibited from issuing a WN ticket on their own ticket stock.
With respect to DL, that one is a head scratcher. If AS has any ability to book on DL (i.e., not a complete inhibition) it should have the ability to book anything on DL. Whether AS puts an internal inhibition, that's another story. It sounds like "access to the Sun DL flight" was an issue because DL is only accepting an endorsed ticket into certain seat buckets from certain AS seat buckets, and AS doesn't want to come more $ out of pocket to do more. Endorsed ticket means that DL is accepting your AS ticket for your DL flight. A newly issued ticket means AS has essentially bought you a ticket on DL, issued on AS ticket stock.
But then, I probably know nothing ... yet somehow more than agents that don't know what is going on behind the friendly user interface that agents use these days. An agent trained on and with access to the native SABRE or APOLLO systems are worth more than their weight in precious metals.
#67
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Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 10,904
Up until at least 2019 you could still book DL flights on the AS website if you jumped through enough hoops (it was a lot of hoops and definitely not immediately obvious -- IIRC you had to already have a ticket, go to make a change, list the possibilities in one of the ways that they offer (I think it was list by departure time?) and then DL options would magically appear). I'm not sure if it's still possible, and I don't currently have any AS tickets so I can't check.
#68
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: British Columbia
Programs: AS MVPG100K, Marriott Marriott Titanium Elite, Hilton Gold
Posts: 7,263
Up until at least 2019 you could still book DL flights on the AS website if you jumped through enough hoops (it was a lot of hoops and definitely not immediately obvious -- IIRC you had to already have a ticket, go to make a change, list the possibilities in one of the ways that they offer (I think it was list by departure time?) and then DL options would magically appear). I'm not sure if it's still possible, and I don't currently have any AS tickets so I can't check.
James
#69
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Sacramento
Programs: AA MM, AS MVP Gold, Hyatt Diamond, Hilton Diamond, SPG Gold, FPC lifetime Plat, Kohls MVP
Posts: 547
I call BS - not on you, but at somewhere along the information line between what the AS agent told you (probably upon management instruction) and reality. This has nothing to do with interline. It has to do with ticket endorsement and acceptance, and/or issuing another airline's ticket on 027 ticket stock.
In Aug 2021, AS called me as I was on my way to SJC and told me I had a potential misconnect @ PDX and wanted to switch my outbound to SFO. I agreed but had to tell agent to rebook my return to SFO as well. He hadn't thought of that and said, ok head to SFO and I will call you back. I guess that level of caring is not to be expected at the current moment.
#70
Join Date: Feb 2017
Programs: Alaska MileagePlan MVP
Posts: 101
Important to remember that in situations like this where the airline is short-staffed across flight crews, ground crews, and operations, some of the typical "Customer Care" conventions are going to go by the wayside simply because they need to triage. Lots of cancellations...lots of Customer Care issues to sort out and not enough staff to do it. It's a situation where it's probably going to get worse before it gets better as they rectify some of their staffing issues, unfortunately.
That doesn't excuse poor customer service or the broader situation, but unless you're a VIP it's unlikely you're going to be getting proactive calls back to resolve Customer Care issues anytime soon.
That doesn't excuse poor customer service or the broader situation, but unless you're a VIP it's unlikely you're going to be getting proactive calls back to resolve Customer Care issues anytime soon.
#71
Join Date: May 2008
Location: "the world is my country"
Programs: Alaska 100K (aka OWS)
Posts: 811
AS cancelled my families Sunday SEA-SMF 6PM flight just before noon. Rebooked for Mon 11am. Found Sun flights on SWA and DL. Supervisor I spoke with couldn't find the DL flight. She mentioned AS doesn't have access to all the DL flights with their interline agreement. No agreement with SWA.
#72
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Mountain Time Zone
Programs: AS Million Miler/Marriott Lifetime Titanium/ IGH Ambassador
Posts: 5,992
Important to remember that in situations like this where the airline is short-staffed across flight crews, ground crews, and operations, some of the typical "Customer Care" conventions are going to go by the wayside simply because they need to triage. Lots of cancellations...lots of Customer Care issues to sort out and not enough staff to do it. It's a situation where it's probably going to get worse before it gets better as they rectify some of their staffing issues, unfortunately.
That doesn't excuse poor customer service or the broader situation, but unless you're a VIP it's unlikely you're going to be getting proactive calls back to resolve Customer Care issues anytime soon.
That doesn't excuse poor customer service or the broader situation, but unless you're a VIP it's unlikely you're going to be getting proactive calls back to resolve Customer Care issues anytime soon.
#73
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: Over the Bay Bridge, CA
Programs: Jumbo mas
Posts: 38,654
#74
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: San Francisco
Programs: UA MM Plat, UA 1MM, Hilton Lifetime Gold, Marriott Gold, Hertz Gold, CLEAR, AS MVP Gold
Posts: 3,621
Been there.... I didn't have that many changes but enough to really be a hassle to rebook and shift stuff around. As I posted before I don't have a "travel office" to rebook and handle this stuff. I end up pounding out all the changes my self online, on the phone, and even at the ticket counter/airport. Total pain and waste of time.
#75
Join Date: May 2003
Location: SFO, mostly
Posts: 2,204
The reality is that almost every airline has struggled with running a reliable operation at some point in the past year. AS has generally run a reliable operation over the years (and in fact still ranked at or near the top of the industry during February and March of this year). Based on FlightAware, it looks like operations have stabilized for the time being, but since Ben's message said to expect "choppiness" the rest of the month, I'm still hesitant to book them on my usual route, which only has one flight/day. Fingers crossed they get things sorted out with the pilots and avert any major disruptions to summer travel.
Last edited by sltlyamusd; May 19, 2022 at 2:11 pm