Alaska Airlines

As usual, long before I detected the sound of the engine as the plane began its descent, I took several ** tablets anticipating to at least feel the pressure in my eardrums. But this time I could hear that the descent was in progress earlier than the usual 20 minutes before the schedule landing, and to my surprise there was no change in the cabin pressure. For the first time in years I had no pain whatsoever, all because of the kindness of a compassionate pilot who considered a need and decided that he can help. He agreed to begin the decent a little early, and my appreciation is beyond words.

Even the walls of my empty plastic water bottle did not squeeze into themselves under the usual powerful cabin pressure. If you never felt a little of this pain you would hope a pilot as the one who flew this flight would be your pilot too. I finally found out that yes, it is possible to start the descent earlier, it is possible to have a gentle descent and even reach your destination early as we did this time.

This is an appeal to all pilots everywhere. Please know that when babies cry at the time of the plane descends, adults cry also, and I am not the only one. Consider yourselves fortunate if cabin pressure does not affect you to this end. Thank you to the pilot who listened to my plea and made my flight peaceful. Sincerely, Emerald **.

Unfortunately, four members on this connecting flight, including ourselves, did not make it due to that flight closing the doors before 9:15 when it was scheduled to leave at 9:30. From there we scrambled to catch a 9:50pm flight (which also got delayed) to Billings, a location 2 hours away from our original destination. It was imperative that we make any flight that night to Montana. As a result, we arrived in Billings, Montana after 1 AM and had to book a rental car for over double our original reservation price in Bozeman. We were reserved with Enterprise for $140 but had to pay Hertz $400 since that was the only company open at our arrival. We then had to then drive 2 hours to get to our hotel.

That wasn’t it folks, on our returning flight from Bozeman to Portland, our flight was delayed again for an hour and we missed our connecting flight in Seattle to Portland. AGAIN. Arriving near midnight last night. Poor communication, “we think you all will be fine with your connecting flights” they said at the terminal. Not true.

Per customer care because this was an air traffic control problem they gave us a “generous” voucher of $75 which can’t even go towards the car rental expense. They mentioned even if we stayed in Seattle for the night we would have had to pay for our own hotel accommodations and they wouldn’t have been able to help us cover that expense. I find that insane that they wouldn’t make things right for the customer. My partner & I have been loyal Alaska frequent fliers and after this incident & the way we’ve been treated, we no longer want to fly with them. It’s very upsetting as none of this was our fault.

Then to make matters worse the day of the flight, we attempted to check on the computers as the line for the agent was out the door but it wouldn't let me check in I guess there's a time cut off. Usually when I fly Southwest as long as you make it to the plane before the doors shut, you get on. Alaska wouldn't let me check in and we had plenty of time to make it to the gate and plane approximately 55 minutes once we got to an actual agent but she refused to let us get our boarding passes so we had to rebook to a flight 4 hours later and pay YET ANOTHER $50 pp.

To make matters worse the agent was not sincere or apologetic. She was cold and I felt like she enjoyed being nasty. I will never fly Alaska. I even wrote into customer relations within their company but they blatantly stated they do not consider disabled people or consider a doctor's note. I just cannot wrap my head around the lack of consideration for me and the situation I had no control over. I fly southwest often and their policies are a lot more customer service oriented. I feel like no one had any concern or customer concern for this unfortunate situation. I would have liked to be honored my flight changed so that visit my family in Oregon without paying triple the cost. We still ended up getting screwed. Not a happy customer. Will never fly with Alaska ever again.

On the day of the flight, my seat assignment was changed to a middle seat, even after I had checked in online. The email I received informing me of Alaska’s corporate decision offered no explanation, no apology, and no compensation for my extreme inconvenience. I was told the seating change was for “an operational need” or some such corporate doublespeak. The woman at the check-in said she was not able to discuss the reason I was being moved, as if it were some top secret espionage maneuver. Of course I saw the person who was given my seat, and he appeared to be perfectly healthy, and more than able to sit in the middle seat to which I was moved. I was neither consulted nor informed of the reason. Just moved.

I filed a complaint with Alaska Airlines. I received a form letter that gave no indication that anyone in their complaint department had actually read my letter. I filed a subsequent complaint about the form letter, to which I have not received a reply. The day after the fight, my leg and foot were very painful. I cannot directly attribute my discomfort to the cramped quarters on the flight, but there certainly seems to be a correlation. The way I was treated by Alaska Airlines is disrespectful and uncaring about my health and the care I took in planning my travel.

We get down there and are told it might be a while before the bags come down so we waited around. Apparently there was a shift change during our wait time because when we went back to see if our bags were there a different lady told us they could not get our bags and they would have to be expedited to Spokane and delivered to us. Great. So we just start driving and in the morning I call the baggage claims to arrange for our bags to be delivered to our house and they said it would cost me money.

I explained the situation thinking they could waive the fee and they wouldn’t budge and wanted us to go another 40 minutes out of our way to pick them up at the airport. This was absolutely unacceptable, we went round and round with customer service and finally someone arranged to have our bags delivered to us. So much for that relaxing vacation we dropped thousands of dollars on. Do yourself a favor and fly with an airline that values your time and business because Alaska clearly doesn’t.