Alaska Airlines Sucks! (WARNING: DO NOT FLY!)
Last Friday afternoon I was supposed to fly from San Diego to San Francisco on Alaska Airlines. We all know that the airline industry as a whole has gone down the tubes lately, but the 7 hour ordeal I went through was just a little over the top – talk about a business that could not care less about their customers.
It first started with weather and air traffic control delays – a problem which seemed unique to them as 3 United Airlines flights for San Francisco left with no problems. They then boarded us and announced that we had one additional delay. When our time to leave came up they told us that one of the air-conditioning packs was on the fritz – even though I could swear that we were still getting fresh air through the vents. When that was fixed, a circuit breaker tripped, and we all had to deplane. We each got a $6 meal voucher which got you a small pizza with no toppings and no drink – pepperoni or anything else had to be paid for by the customer.
We were then told/lied to that we would leave on an airplane that was parked at the gate next door with the same crew except for a new pilot. In the meantime I noticed that they had changed the flight number at the gate with the supposedly broken plane to a later San Fran flight.
When we finally boarded our flight one guy from the later flight tried to get on ours and was told that his flight would board momentarily at the gate next door. Knowing that the plane was broken, and having been lied to all night, I felt bad for him – thinking he would not see San Fran that night.
Our new plane had no power, since power could only be turned on by the pilot who had not yet arrived – a new twist in the story as I was led to believe that we had a new pilot who was already in the San Diego airport. No power means that it really gets hot, and it also means that the toilets do not flush, so it really gets stinky too. After being in there for awhile we saw the other airplane – the one we were on originally – take off for San Francisco! Once that flight was gone we were told that our pilot had arrived but that he was so ill that he had to be taken away by paramedics…so they cancelled the flight.
Couldn’t they come up with a better story?
Obviously they decided that since we were so delayed already they were better off canceling our flight and having the next flight be an on-time departure. Instead of telling us that, they kept us at the airport for another few unnecessary hours and then made us board an empty plane so that we would not rebel when the later flight took off…
…of course, there was no budget for overnight accommodations…you were on your own – they would not even make suggestions on where to stay. There was an Alaska Airlines manager at the airport but he was not available to speak with customers – I bet he was fearing for his safety at that point.
When I tried to leave for San Francisco the next day, the only thing they could do for me was to get me there by 10:30pm through Portland. When I asked if they could put me on another airline they rudely told me that they could not do that and that I had to buy another ticket from another airline directly if I wanted to see San Francisco before 10:30 that night…
Note to self – never even think of flying Alaska Air again. They are rude and they don’t even try to pretend that they are not lying to their customers.
[Tags: Alaska Air Alaska Airlines customer service worse practices airlines]
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February 12th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Man, that sucks. I’m really sad to hear you had such a crappy time of it all. However, I’ve flown Alaska for years and never had the problems you experienced at that airport.
My point is this: I would rather see you take action to correct the problem than flame them on a blog where you attempt to influence people not to fly with them. I understand it sucks, and they certainly didn’t attempt to help you while you were there. But, there are other people to talk to – some of whom I’m sure would love to hear your experience and kick the asses of the people who handed those to ya.
Coming from a customer service perspective, they should be clamoring to fix the problems you’ve mentioned with those people, in that airport.
My experience with Alaska has been stellar. Regularly on-time, and always cheerful.
February 12th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Oh, and I have no association to them whatsoever. I don’t own stock in them. I’ve never been paid by them, etc. Just figured I’d throw out that disclaimer so people don’t try to discredit my comment. I’ve been a regular reader of this blog for a while now and I typically love what’s posted. This one just caught me off guard.
February 12th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Nate – I guess I see your point. But considering that this whole fiasco cost me an extra $900 in hotel room and new ticket costs and that when I tried to rectify the problem I was being treated rudely I could not hold myself back.
Another woman who was on that flight asked at some point if they would provide transportation for her from San Fran to Oakland as it looked like she was going to miss the last public transportation. The guy said “we do not provide transportation between airports.” Then she asked (this was before the flight was canceled) if she could go in the morning as she had no transportation but knew someone in San Diego and the guy said “no, you’d have to buy a new ticket.”
There was also an elderly woman who required a wheelchair. When we deplaned they just “dumped” her by the counter without telling her anything until we boarded the next flight. She got so worked up that she did require paramedics.
All those things made me angry enough to blast them on my site. They cost me real money, real aggravation and real discomfort. Why would I not vent in the face of such customer “abuse”?
I am usually really careful when I blog about problems I run into, as I know the effects all to well. But I believe that companies have to be held accountable for mistreating their customers.
Thanks for the kind words about my blog! I am a frequent and loyal reader of yours as well and I hope I will be able to continue to provide value in the future.
February 12th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
BTW – the cost I mentioned does not include the cost of the Sheraton Hotel I had reserved in San Francisco and which was guaranteed for late arrival. Those people were nice enough to not charge, even though I only canceled around midnight.
February 13th, 2007 at 5:19 am
Francois
Reminds me of a very similar situation when British Airways messed-up big-time in a snowy Paris, leaving the Station Manager refusing to talk to tired customers and customers with no opportunity but to seek an extremely expensive hotel down-town, whilst they waited for a flight the following day.
As has been widely acknowledged by service failure researchers, a catastrophic service failure of the kind you experienced is enough to turn you off from flying Alasks for ever.
Alaska failed to deliver the outcome it promised, showed how broken many of its processes were and treated you apallingly in the process. Oh and it didn’t make the slightest attempt to recover the situation. You have every right to be angry and to advise others to avoid flying their particularly unfriendly skys.
Flying is fraught enough in these difficult times without incompetent, unfriendly, rude airlines. Sometimes public shaming is the only way to get airline management to sit up and take note.
Maybe this will become their ‘Alaska Hell’.
Graham Hill
Involuntary Frequent Traveller
February 13th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Francois,
Wow, that certainly takes the cake for customer abuse. I’ve yet to hear (personally) of a real situation that’s worse than what you’ve described, and I certainly don’t blame you for writing what you did.
I took the liberty of contacting Alaska Air via their contact form, mentioning your blog, and asking them to rectify the situation by at least joining in the conversation here, if nothing else.
We’ll see if they actually take that seriously and show up. I’d be happy to know if they contact you in some other manner as well.
February 13th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Nate – I hope that they would engage in this conversation and better yet reimburse me for my hotel night and my same-day-purchase flight to San Francisco on United.
But if the attitude of the people I dealt with was any indication of their corporate culture, somehow I doubt this will happen…
March 21st, 2007 at 11:30 pm
I have flown alaskan airlines I don’t know how many times. Each time I feel like I’ve been held hostage. I have indeed been held hostage because no one else flies to the locations I travel to in Alaska. They have tried to cheat me out of sky miles. They have disallowed me to board an airplane because I was, get this, 2 minutes past the check in time in Yakutat, Alaska. That is we were at the gate 43 minutes early rather than 45 minutes early. We were in line and the guys in front of us made it in the magic time but we were denied. The plane wasn’t even on the ground yet. We watched the plane land, people and gear deplane, new passengers load, their luggage was loaded and they took off. The “woman” at the counter got sick of us pointing out to her that we could’ve made it so she just left us standing there. Try finding lodging in Yakutat, a village of 600 people. My luggage has been lost, delays are very common and this airline could indeed not care if you fly them or not.
March 24th, 2007 at 3:32 am
I have had a very similar experience with Alaska Airlines. We were supposed to leave San Diego at 3:00 pm for Seattle. First delay was 2 hours, second delay was another 45 minutes. They said the plane needed a part that had to be flown down from Seattle. Meanwhile, they switch our flight to another plane that now needs a pilot because the other one has timed out. They choose to DRIVE the pilot down from Los Angeles at 5:30 in the afternoon. Hello??? Can anyone say rush hour?! 30 minutes later we watched our 1st malfunctioning plane take off. We are still waiting. We finally get standby seats on a following flight and get to Seattle 5 hours after schedule.
The story is not over.
3 days later we were flying back to San Diego from Seattle. After half of the passengers boarded we were told that there was a mechanical problem and we needed to switch gates to a new plane. OK, no problem. We all board the plane, and sit. For 1 hour. There is another mechanical problem. This is finally fixed and we push back, and sit. For another 35 minutes. As they did the last walk around of the plane, they realized they must de-ice before going up to 40 thousand feet.
I will NEVER fly Alaska Airlines again. They made very poor choices and were never honest with their customers.
March 30th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
5 hours late sounds good to me if I get there safe, rather than the airline just taking off without taking all necessary precautions.
August 7th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
I just had the WORST experience every flying on, you guessed it, Alsaka Airlines. Long story short: Travelling with two 12 year olds and a dog, I booked and paid for 4 first class tickets from Spokane to Seattle then on to Orange County without changing planes. Easy enough, right? We get to the airline an hour and a half early, and are promptly told that there is a 3 hour delay (on a Mon. with perfect weather?), but that there would be no problem with the flights. After waiting for three hours, we ask if it is on time, and are told that they decided to cancel the Seattle to OC portion of our flight (with no announcement) and attempt to put us up for the night in a crappy hotel in Seattle. The lady “helping” us just said “sorry, we just dropped the ball on this one”; after speaking to a supervisor he figured out that if we went from Spokane to Seattle to Portland to Orange County, we would “only” get home 6 hours later than expected. However, what is still not addressed is that the flights we paid for were supposed to be first class, and the ones we got were coach. Oh, I almost forgot; I still don’t have my 5 bags I checked on. I am now going to tell my credit card company that I dispute the entire charge on my credit card, since I clearly did not get anything close to what I paid for. Let them fight it out, because you can’t even talk, let alone reason, with any human being in the airline industry. My family and I decided no more travelling – it’s just not worth it. I hope the entire industry goes down the tubes, because it has clearly been taken over by most likely harvard mba types that have been educated beyond their intelligence and only care about stock price and options. Good riddance.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
My dad works for tha Alaska Airlines so shut up!!!!!!!!!!
September 18th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Tell daddy to complain to management
October 20th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
My experience from LA to Anchorage.
Check-in counter closed 2 minutes before we were at counter.
This was due to an earlier cancelled flight (reason being the pilots exceeded rest time), causing a long queue at the counter.
Our confirmed seats were given away.
Waited at the airport for 8 hours + 2 hours delay for a connecting flight via Seattle to Anchorage.
No meal voucher or anything.
At Seattle we ran for out connecting flight.
Arrived Anchorage without our luggage.
Total airport time: 16.5 hours
Luggage recovered 5 days later in LA.
Wrote in for compensation.
After a few e-mails, ALASKA AIRLINES refuse to reply anymore, said something about Singapore Airlines will compensate us.
What a load of shit.
Anyone has contacts to higher management?
October 20th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Dear Bryan,
I would like you to ask your Daddy for the management’s contacts.
Anyone who can help would be good.
Thank you.
Cheng KL
July 9th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
As someone who flies 50-100k miles per year, I’d say that Alaska Airlines in definitely a mixed bag as far as customer service. Today I flew them from Seattle to San Diego. I checked in over two hours early for my flight and was given the option of an earlier flight so I took it. The good – I arrived in San diego and was paged, my baggage didn’t make the flight and will arrive in two hours and they’ll call me. I thought that was nice that they paged me rather than making me wait at the carousel for a bag that won’t be there. Then the Bad – they called me, and the lady said my bag is at the airport and I can pick it up. I told her I don’t have a car, in sunny Southern california, who would need a car when you can walk or bike everywhere? so I asked her if they deliver as I would need to hire a taxi, she said yes, but since I checked in late, I would have to pay. I said I checked in 2+ hours early, she said no, you checked in 30 minutes before the flight and if you want to argue anymore we won’t be able to deliver your bag. I figured OK, $16 is less than the taxi and I’ll increase my effort to not fly them again (I quit flying them a few years ago after they broke a new “unbreakable plastic suitcase” and gave me a huge runaround to get it replaced. so the page was nice the rest of the service sucked.
October 20th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
alska airlines doesnt suck!
October 29th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I have been with Alaska Airlines approx 21 years and never had a bad flight.I know many of the staff,pilots ,attendants ect. I now have approx 500,000 miles on the books and intend to use them all with the people who have severed me over the years. I am a private business man and been in the air for over 50 years.. I salute my friends at Alaska and look foward to my twice a month flights to Mexico.
November 16th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Well, I guess your mileage may vary. We’ve used them several times now, and tonight will be the LAST time. They have NEVER been on time ONCE! Last time was 5 hours late on a 2 1/2 hour flight. NO ONE at the counter to ask what’s going one, people waiting for the incoming flight calling the 800 number, and getting a different answer each time. TONIGHT is the last straw. My wife and daughter got to Sea-Tac airport THREE hours before departure time, to find out they moved the flight up and it was 17 minutes from leaving. No chance of making it. SORRY is the basic answer, we can get you out a day from now. NO upgrade, no seats on another airline, no comp NOTHING. I called the 800# and they could route her on about 30 hours worth of flights, but that kind of doesn’t help. I thought you’d have to go some to beat the crappy service on United, but here is one ready to give them a run for the money. Even if they eventually offer us a free seat, I will NEVER, BUT NEVER set foot on one of their planes again.
Guess don’t have much else I can get from them, except maybe helping them to eventually go out of business by telling anybody I can that they SUCK
June 5th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
I agree that Alaska Airlines sucks. I live in Juneau Alaska and have had encountered poor customer service on numerous occasions. They are the only airline that flies into our community and they know it and act like it. We are constantly overcharged for our flights. Why can I go to Hawaii for less than it takes me to get from Juneau to Seattle? It is cheaper from Anchorage to Seattle even though it is much further. They have a stranglehold on our community. One time a plane full of people had to wait 30 minutes so they could load cream for the coffee (I kid you not). The best part of it was after 30 minutes we decided to take off without the cream….
I’ve had to board and deboard numerous times with many of the same excuses above. We’re putting you on this new jet …Oh wait, we don’t have a pilot or flight crew…Hold on…Two hours later I was still waiting. Meanwhile the plane I was on originally took off…
I think it’s important to remember that Alaska Airlines is there to maximize profits and they don’t think twice about doing it at your expense.
July 11th, 2009 at 3:44 am
This airline sucks they won’t even let you check 1 bag without paying a 15.00 fee and the second bag is 25.00 more. Tell your friends Alaska Airlines SUCKS!!!!
August 20th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I agree with John. I just found out about the baggage fees. Who travels without bags?
All this does is encourage the jerks of the world to carry on their big bags and try to shove them into the overloaded overhead bins.
Just build the cost of a single bag into the ticket price, and then charge me for more bags if needed. Alaska Airlines, don’t nickel and dime me.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
10 reasons why Alaska Airlines sucks:
1. Since Alaska Airlines is the only carrier throughout Alaska, they can charge whatever they want, and give whatever service they want.
2. Food is usually not available, or it cost money
3. Baggage is an additional fee, but on cheaper airlines such as Southwest, luggage is free
4. Alaska Airlines can’t handle competition. Since Virgin America is the new west coast airlines, Alaska Airlines has complained to the government that VA is not complying to US law
5. If you land at an airport that is not your intended destination in the lower 48, they may tell you that you have to pay for your own transportation to get there.
6. They also do not have a budget for overnight stays at a hotel in the lower 48 when the airplane fails.
7. If there is a technical failure on the tarmac, Alaska Airlines does not unload their aircraft of its passengers even if it is more than eight hours long.
8. Alaska Airlines fired their old ground service in Seattle to hire a cheaper one that is the slowest in the nation to handle luggage at a major airport. They also hired a bunch of Mexican gang members that have been caught vandalizing aircraft.
9. Alaska Airlines can’t take heat when you send in a complaint, so you will never get a response.
10. Alaska Airlines has taken out all routes overseas a few decades ago. Now Alaska residents can’t enjoy using air miles to travel anywhere outside of North America.