Alaska Airlines Nighmare

Story

It all started when I got to Seattle Airport. I had about 1 hour 20 until departure, ya late I know. Alaska’s policy is 40 minutes before departure for domestic flights. I told the lady guarding the check-in line that I didn’t have much time but she just rolled her eyes and said get in line. I wait in line for about 10 minutes and it’s not moving. They have like 3 checkin agents that check in one passenger then go on break for like 5 minutes.

I tell the lady again and she just says stay in line. It gets down to 40 minutes before departure. I told the lady again and she said stay in line while telling other people to go to the business class line. The line moves a bit and a nice passenger in line lets me go in front of them.

Then I tell a check-in agent, Agent A, and she says talk to the next available person. They still only have 3 people. I go up to one agent, Agent B, and say I need help. She says “I’m not ready yet” and then yells at me, I go to another agent and she says “I’m not ready yet” while Agent B is helping somebody else.

I go back to Agent A and she helps me but by this point it’s passed the check-in cut off. She goes and gets the manager. The manager comes over and says “there’s nothing we can do” and tells me to call Qantas, the flight still hasn’t left yet. So I kept pushing him so he called the gate and asked if I could risk it. He issued me a boarding pass with precheck and to just gate check my big suitcase. I take it and go off towards security.

I get to the TSA precheck line, there are no passengers in line. So I hand the agent my passport and the TSA agent says” there is no precheck on the ticket. And go to the normal security or wait like 15 minutes.”

I exited the line and looked at the ticket and it had a precheck on it. I went back to the same agent. Tell her to check again.

It worked that time. I put my bag on the scanner and I forgot I had a wine opener in it. No big deal, tell them to toss it. I then ran for the gate. They were boarding the final group. I got a bag tag and the guy was like “Oh you’re that guy that they called about, you got here quick”

I got on and took my seat sweating. I was able to get this picture. My bag is the red one.

Takeaway

I was planning to get to the airport sooner. So some of it is on me. I’ve flown other airlines that I arrived at the same time and didn’t have a problem.

So I think Alaska needs to train their check in staff hospitality. The entire situation could have been handled much better. Also, they need to have more staff at check in, even the bag drop check-in was backed up.

I did file a complaint with Alaska Airlines but I don’t expect anything to change….

It does leave a bad taste in my mouth. I think I might cancel my Alaska Airlines credit card and just fly Delta from now on out of Seattle.