Planes, planes, and … more planes

This made my head explode, and I thought I would share it and see if others have similar stories...

Amy and I are going to Alaska soon, partly for a medical conference she is going to attend, and totally for a much-anticipated vacation. We managed to use frequent flyer miles with a major carrier to fly up, but of course they don't fly to the small town where we are staying, so they are using a partnering airline to get us from Seattle to Sitka. Given that this is the peak season, we were disappointed but not terribly surprised that the flights on which there were still frequent-flyer seats available were not at the friendliest times. For example, we will get to Seattle just shy of midnight. We then leave Seattle two days later (by choice) on a 7am flight (not by choice). Not ideal, but oh well. Those are the breaks.

Our return flight was even worse, leaving Sitka at 6:00am to fly to Juneau. From Juneau, we would wait several hours and catch a flight to Seattle. From Seattle (again, several hours later) we were to catch a flight back home, arriving after 10pm local time. The plan was definitely less than ideal, but what can you do when you have to make 2 connections with layovers? They don't exactly offer non-stop service from DFW to Sitka. For that matter, they don't really offer non-stop service from Sitka to anywhere, including Sitka.

You think I'm joking...

As is not unusual when you make reservations months (and months) in advance, the flight schedule was juggled around some. Departure times moved, flight numbers changed, etc. I didn't think much of it until I checked our itinerary again today to start working on rides to and from the airport. What I discovered made me laugh. Our direct flight from Juneau to Seattle had been replaced by one slightly earlier that made a layover before reaching Seattle. The times were a little tighter, but still easily doable. The punchline was that the Juneau to Seattle flight now made a stop in Sitka! So, we were to board a plane at 6:00am, fly to Juneau, then fly back to Sitka before flying direct from Sitka to Seattle at 10:30am! Talk about flying in circles!

I understand that flight schedules change, and computers do their best to make the changes to peoples' itineraries, so I was merely amused to see their proposed flights. Not wanting to waste 4 1/2 hours in the air, however, I called our airline to do a sanity check on the schedule and drop the Stika-Juneau-Sitka yo-yo. What I was told almost made my head explode. If I wasn't sure it would work out in the end, I'd be getting steamed...

The very polite agent informed me that the Sitka to Seattle flight qualified as a direct flight, and did not have any open seats for frequent flyer travelers, so I was being connected through Juneau. When confronted with the reality that I was already ON the Sitka to Seattle flight as a RESULT of being connected through Juneau, she didn't know what to say. Finally she replied that she would have to contact the local carrier (remember, the major carrier doesn't fly to Sitka) because she didn't have the authority to overbook their flights. OVERBOOK!?!? I'm already TICKETED on that flight! All I want is to drop two legs which cancel each other out! How does that overbook? Couldn't I just show up 4 hours late in Sitka and get on that flight anyway? I have a ticket! No, they'd probably give my seat away when I didn't show up in Juneau...

Sheesh...

I've seen strange airline bookings before, don't get me wrong. For example, American Airlines once booked me through New York to get to Providence, RI. Nothing unusual there, but they had me arriving at JFK and leaving from LaGuardia (or the other way around, I don't remember). It would have been inconvenient but doable, if the second flight had not left less than an hour after the first flight landed. When I asked a phone rep if that was intentional, I got the reply "Yes, and that is cutting it close, so you'd better not check any luggage." I kid you not! It took that rep's manager to straighten things out...

Bottom line - the major carrier has sent a "note" to the local carrier to see if we can get this straightened out. I'm confident that logic will prevail and we'll end up making 2 flights instead of 4. If not, you'll hear about it here...