Wingtips56 wrote:Does anyone have any insight as to when AS may rebuild their PDX-MFR schedule? I've been impacted by three AS schedule changes in the last four weeks with my trip home from Egypt/Qatar. They moved the LAX-MFR non-stop up 3 hours, blowing my connection from QR. (OK, the LAX-MFR service will be another question later.) So rebooked to a connection forced over SEA because nothing works over PDX. Now another sked change blew that booking, eliminating the LAX-SEA flight I was on, and booking me on an earlier flight...which also doesn't allow for a reasonable Customs/Bradley Terminal to T6, so now I'm booked on a later connection with a longer connecting time and not arriving MFR until midnight....36 total hours from T/O at CAI to landing at MFR. ugh..... Still nothing possible over PDX.
Any insights as to more tinkering with the schedule between now and February? I keep having to glue myself to the internet every Sunday at 01:00 to see what's happened this time and get on the horn to AA (AAdvantage award booking) to get protected before the masses wake up and catch on.
At least the last SEA-MFR trip is being upgraded to the 2-cabin E-175 from the Q400 by February, so we're back in F for the final leg and can use the Alaska Lounge on the layover.
I feel for you. I’ve had similar issues with post-Christmas plans.
I understand it’s a very volatile time right now, but I also feel at times that AS is filling in place holders that they know they have no intention of actually operating. That screws up their customers who get rental car and hotel reservations. Then AS comes back and says, “Sorry, just kidding. We never really planned to operate that flight/route.”
I’ve had the same fiascos with post-Christmas travel out of PAE. I book PAE-SAN. It’s 2x. Then changes to 1x. No biggie - I actually preferred the schedule change. Then they cancel PAE-SAN outright.
But get this - they later reinstate the SAN-PAE flight on the original day of my return 1/4 that they had just canceled me out of.
Then I book PAE-TUS. That’s just been loaded. Within a week the outbound flight changes 4 hours later, then changes back to close to its original time. No biggie. I prefer the 1st and 3rd iteration over the 2nd iteration, but could live with either.
Of course a week after I book it, AS changes TUS-PAE to 4x a week so my return flight is canceled. This isn’t long after they loaded the route in the first place on a daily schedule. So they put me on a 4:50 hour connection in PDX for TUS-PDX-PAE. In fact I think 1/4 is the first day PDX-PAE resumes.
Anyone want to place bets whether the PDX-PAE flight will again be cancelled between now and 1/4? Or PAE-TUS for that matter.
The good thing I’ll say is that AS’s reservation agents are helpful. I know if I call and ask politely to be switched to TUS-SEA or a day that TUS-PAE operates, they’ll likely do it.
So question: when AS loaded PAE-TUS recently did they ever really intend to run it daily? The route hasn’t even started yet and they already cut it back to 4x.
I realize that AS’s schedule planners are probably overworked and stressed too, but this constant late in the game merry-go-round of changes, cancellations, reinstatements, etc is getting very difficult to deal with for most of us travelers who also need to make rental car, hotel, and work arrangements for travel. Changing a rental car reservation late in the game for peak travel can be difficult and expensive with the volatility of that industry too.
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