Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where Alaskans often fly en route to somewhere, is still suffering from extremely high flight delays and cancelations.
According to FlightAware.com, Seat-Tac was second only to Denver in the number of delays and cancelations of any major airport in the world on New Year’s Eve. 148 flights in and out of Sea-Tac were canceled as of 5 p.m. on Friday, and another 179 were delayed.
Alaska Airlines had the highest number of flights that were delayed or canceled. Eighty six flights — about one in five of all of the airline’s Sea-Tac flights — were pre-canceled on Friday and at least 16 flights in and out of Seattle were canceled on Saturday.
“We sincerely apologize for the considerable inconvenience and understandable frustration that our guests have experienced this week,” the Seattle-based airline said on its blog. “We’re using all our resources to get our guests to their destination as soon as possible, while operating safely.”
Weather and a large number of crew members infected with Covid have contributed. In addition, airline bookings over the holidays were up to nearly pre-pandemic levels.
If your flight is affected, you will be notified via email, Alaska Airlines said, and can check or change your flight online.
“We automatically reschedule canceled flights on the next best available flight(s) to your final destination. If you are unable to reschedule your flight at this time, rest assured that we will hold the value of your ticket until you are ready to travel again,” Alaska Airlines stated. It recommended that if people don’t need to travel before Jan. 2, they adjust their flights now. Even non-refundable tickets are being allowed changes through Jan. 16.
In addition, the company is not able to fly animals in the cargo holds at this time, and is not accepting unaccompanied minors, teen “no-assists” and teen “assists” into and out of Seattle through Jan. 3.
One mother wrote of her frustration on Twitter: “My 11 year old is stuck in Seattle x1 week because #alaskaairlines #seatac won’t let her on her flight today with clear skies 3rd flight she’s been denied this week after they left her plane on the tarmac for 5 hours Sunday and telling her dad she took off.”
Others reported being on hold for hours as they tried to rearrange their travel.
