Flight Log of Alaska Airlines Flight 176 and 922 from Juneau to Baltimore via Seattle

by admin

After spending a week visiting places in Alaska, this post would be about my flights back home on the east coast, that’s plagued by delays and interruptions.

Flying pass Mount Rainier

Finally, after an amazing week when I climbed a YDS class 2 mountain, a YDS class 3 mountain, visited the northernmost town in United States with its polar day and floating arctic ice, stepped foot onto a giant glacier and explored an ice cave, it’s time for me to head back to Washington DC.
Originally, I was ticketed on a flight that left Juneau at 6:40pm the previous evening, connecting onto a redeye at Seattle that would land me in Washington DC on the morning of July 9. Unfortunately, Alaska Airlines changed its schedule between Juneau and Seattle, which meant there weren’t any feasible flights the previous evening for me to connect onto that transcon redeye, so I got changed to the morning flight AS176 that would land me in Seattle at 8:50am, followed by a 5-hour layover before connecting on AS2 to Washington DCA that left at 1:46pm. I didn’t like the idea of waking up early and then spending 5 hours in Seattle, but with that being the only option, I had to grin and bear it.

Flight AS176 from Juneau to Seattle

Flight AS176 was scheduled to take off at 5:30am, so I set my alarm clock at 3:20am in the morning. (!) Unfortunately, 5 minutes after I woke up, I got an email from Alaska Airlines that my flight was delayed, for 4.5 hours!
Ideally, I would head straight back to bed for some more sleep, but unfortunately that 5 minutes were enough to clear all my drowsiness, and I wasn’t in mood for more sleep. So, I decided to pack up my luggage and headed to the airport as planned. Anyways, there’s another flight AS60 that would reach Seattle after stopover at Ketchikan, I might have a chance of making it onto that flight.

Juneau Airport Terminal Exterior
Small but succinct, if one ignored the line for checkin which extended beyond the main gate.

However, after I returned my rental car, I found the checkin lines extended throughout the terminal building, and sometimes out of the main gate.
To begin with, Alaska Airlines only had 5 checkin desks at Juneau (no dedicated first class/elite counters that morning), which was grossly inadequate to handle situations like this (Utqiaġvik/Barrow had 3, despite only 1 was manned). Then the line was moving very slowly, because a lot of people would be missing their connections, and the agents were rebooking them onto different flights, which took time. When it’s finally my turn, Alaska Airlines showed the estimated Seattle arrival time for AS176 to be 1:19pm, with 27 minutes for me to make the connection to AS2. So I didn’t mention the Ketchikan flight to the agent, thinking there must be people in more urgent need for that flight.
By the way, Juneau Airport didn’t seem to have public WiFi on its lower checkin level, so it wasn’t a nice wait in line.

As the state’s capital, Juneau Airport only had 5 gates, which was fewer than what I expected. But for flights to Anchorage and Seattle and many neighboring towns, they seemed to manage just fine. But what didn’t quite work was its security checkpoint, with only 2 x-ray machines and 1 body scanners, so there was a very long line, just like the checkin line downstairs. In addition, the body scanner certainly wasn’t in the mood for doing its job that morning, that I had to be patted down by an officer manually.
As a result of the bottleneck at the security checkpoint, AS60 to Ketchikan/Seattle was slightly delayed because passengers couldn’t make it past security on time.

After making it past security, I found a place to sit and started to work on my laptop. Juneau Airport’s public WiFi didn’t require signin, which was a plus, but with many people in the terminal simultaneously, it was rather slow. On the bright side, public TVs in the terminal were broadcasting French Open Tennis and attracted some audience.
Then I did some research on the cause of this delay. Alaska Airlines’ N493AS was supposed to fly from Ketchikan to Juneau the previous night, but that flight was cancelled. Obviously the plane ran into some issues and had to spend the night in Ketchikan, before being ferried to Juneau this morning.

Alaska Airlines B739 (N251AK) Taking Off

7:30am. It’s bound for Ketchikan and then Seattle. There it went the only opportunity at the time for me to make the connection to Washington DC.
Alaska Airlines B739 (N493AS) Arriving

At first Alaska Airlines estimated that AS176 could takeoff from Juneau at 9:55am. It’s 10:10am when N493AS, which would serve this flight, arrived at Juneau.
Boarding Flight to Seattle

After the plane arrived at the gate, we learned that the plane hadn’t been properly cleaned during its overnight stay in Ketchikan. So we waited for some more time before boarding.
Rain
Juneau Airport Terminal
Captured during takeoff, much smaller than I expected.

After our plane left the gate, we waited at the end of runway 26 for 8 minutes, as our captain told us, for another plane to land on runway 8. A sign of the complex airspace to the east of the airport that pilots were trying to avoid.

Alaska Airlines 176
Juneau, AK (JNU) – Seattle, WA (SEA)
Boeing B737-900 (N493AS)
Seat 17F
Scheduled Departure – 5:30am
Actual Departure – 11:19am
Scheduled Arrival – 8:50am
Actual Arrival – 2:29pm
2 hours and 10 minutes
Here’s GPS tracking:

Snowy Mountains around Favorite Channel

I didn’t reserve my seat early enough on this flight, and by the time I did, the only good seat was 17F on the exit row, which, unfortunately, had its recline button broken.
But on the bright side, while clouds started at 1000m elevation outside Juneau, they cleared off as we were flying over British Columbia, so I got treated with endless sights of snowy mountains below.

Mountains in British Columbia
Gribbell Island
Mountains in British Columbia
Butedale Passage
Mountains in British Columbia
Butedale Passage and Sarah Island
Mountains in British Columbia
Sheep Passage
Mountains in British Columbia
Mathieson Channel
Islands in British Columbia
King Island
Islands in British Columbia
Chatfield Island
Mountains in British Columbia
Rivers Inlet
Mountains in British Columbia
Fitz Hugh Sound in the background.
Mountains in British Columbia
Mountains in British Columbia
Mountains in British Columbia
Mountains in British Columbia
Islands in British Columbia
Kingcome Inlet
Mountains in British Columbia
Islands in British Columbia
Mt Antony, Nickoll Passage and Knight Inlet.
Comox Lake

And the spectacle continued after we entered the United States, this time, of Olympic National Park.

Mountains in Olympic National Park
Mt Olympus
Mountains in Olympic National Park
Mountains in Olympic National Park
Mountains in Olympic National Park

That’s followed by sights of villages around Puget Sound.

Dyes Inlet
Banner Forest
Hood Canal
Carr Inlet and Case Inlet
Islands off Tacoma
Tacoma Narrows Airport in the lower right.
Islands off Tacoma

Distant Mount Rainier

Connection at Seattle

Based on AS176’s actual takeoff time from Juneau, I fathomed that there would be no way for me to catch my connecting flight to Washington DC, and the only thing Alaska Airlines could do was to put me on tomorrow morning’s AS4 and offer me a night’s hotel. That wouldn’t be too bad for me since I didn’t have anything planned for tomorrow, and I could comfortably visit some of my friends in Seattle for dinner.

After we touched down in Seattle, we taxied for 13 minutes to the gate, during which I was busy running some errands on my phone. It’s 2:45pm by the time I stepped out of the plane, an hour after AS2’s scheduled departure time. Much to my surprise, I checked my phone and found AS2 still hadn’t departed.

Alaska Airlines A321neo (N930VA)

This should be my plane back to Washington DC. It was parked at the gate and experiencing engine problems.

I then headed towards the gate of AS2, which was also in the north satellite building, and inquired about the gate agent. They told me the plane was experiencing engine problems, and the 5pm departure time which was shown on the information screen was “just a guess”. At the moment, they were busy handing out food vouchers.

As a note, the two planes that gave me trouble today (N493AS / N930VA) were both wearing Alaska Airlines’ “more to love” special livery, and there were only 3 planes of such livery in its fleet (if I remember correctly, the other being N927VA A321neo).

Then an episode unfolded which very much defied my expectation of how Alaska Airlines could manage things at its Seattle hub.

A gate change to a remote one in northern main terminal from north satellite was announced. I then raced there to find my seat changed. I tried to talk to the new gate agents, who told me the plane was downgauged to A320, so they had to confirm passenger manifest first before they could help me with seats.
A lunch trip later the agents finally(!) realized the downgauge from 321 to 320 would lose 34 seats, and they needed to rebook some passengers onto other flights.
To be fair, it’s a daunting task as almost all passengers on this flight had Washington DC as their final destination. For DC-Seattle direction they could use other west coast hubs to shed connecting passengers. And the other flights to Washington DC region that night and next day were all booked pretty fully. To begin, they were looking for volunteers for the overnight red-eye flight to Baltimore, with compensation vouchers starting at 600 dollars.

Meanwhile, a 5pm departure of the Seattle-DC flight would land past midnight in DC, which meant I needed to ask my friend to pick me up at the airport instead of taking public transport home as planned. On the other hand, I didn’t have anything planned for tomorrow, and I thought I had enough bad luck with Alaska Airlines today that I quite fancy a change of luck. So I decided to volunteer for a different flight.

It turned out the line for rebooking was horrendously long at the counter, partly because it took quite some effort by the agent to perform rebooking. They ended up commandeering a nearby gate to double their rebooking capacity. So I instead walked to the customer service center down the terminal. The few agents there said that they were able to book me onto next morning’s flight and gave me hotel and meal vouchers, but nothing beyond that.
So I headed back to the gate to volunteer. The agent told me the overnight Baltimore flight was full, now the only options were next morning. Of the 3 morning flights to DC’s 3 airports, the agent said the DCA flight was full (not so when I checked later that night), and I picked BWI over IAD. By that time, the compensation voucher had gone up to 750 dollars.

In hindsight, I felt Alaska Airlines could be doing better in communication. I bet the downgauge to A320 was a sure thing by the time the gate change was announced, so they could start looking for volunteers at the same time, not an exodus and a lunch trip later. They could announce clearly that “x volunteers were needed”, instead of “6 available seats on the overnight flight to Baltimore” followed by “oh we need more for tomorrow morning”. In the end, AS2 took off at 6pm that day, the additional delay was lagrely resulted from the slow rebooking process.

Hotel

So at the end of the day, I were to spend the night in Seattle. Alaska Airlines offered me a voucher for the nearby Double Tree by Hilton, which was my first time staying in a Hilton property.
The hotel room turned out to be pretty nice. It would certainly be better if I had access to my luggage. It’s just that I never had luck with the hotel’s free airport shuttle (To be clear this wasn’t the hotel’s fault.). For the overnight stay I tried to catch it 4 times, and for 3 out of 4 times I missed it by seconds.

Hotel Room
Hotel Room
Hotel Room

By the time I got to the hotel it’s past 6pm, so the entire episode of rebooking cost me 3 hours but I got a 750-dollar voucher. After that, I still decided to pay my friends in downtown Seattle a visit, and I had a hell of a tale to tell, about my back-and-forth for the day.

Flight AS922 from Seattle to Baltimore

Flight AS922 was scheduled to take off at 8:19am, so I decided to take the 6:30am shuttle from the hotel. Expectedly, I missed it, by about a minute. Then, a quick check of the maps and I decided to walk to the airport.
Which wasn’t that far, largely because I could use the security checkpoint on the closer southern (Delta) part of the airport, then took the tram to the northern (Alaska) part. Security lines were long in the morning at Seattle Airport, but I still made it to the gate on time.

Breakfast

For my overnight stay in Seattle, Alaska Airlines provided a pretty decent amount of food vouchers. Just that the episode of seat assignment took so long that by the time it’s settled, the noodles were cold and I had to gobble it up before boarding time.
Alaska Airlines B739 (N433AS)
My plane to Baltimore.
Seattle Airport North Terminal

After grabbing a breakfast box, I found on the app that my seat got changed without my knowledge, for the second time during this trip. This angered me quite a bit, so I went to have a lengthy exchange with the gate agent, who put the blame on the software system. It took him a very long time to sort out the seating issue, as he had to cancel my checkin and perform it again. I guessed in the same time I wasn’t being a nice model for the many families in line behind me that were trying to sort out their seating problems.

In the end, there were about 20 empty seats onboard, and I had an entire row to myself. The cabin crew were very nice to the many families onboard. The downside? For God knows how many times during this trip, I found the tray table not clean.

Alaska Airlines 922
Seattle, WA (SEA) – Baltimore, MD (BWI)
Boeing B737-900 (N433AS)
Seat 32F
Scheduled Departure – 8:19am
Actual Departure – 8:35am
Scheduled Arrival – 4:34pm
Actual Arrival – 4:13pm
4 hours and 38 minutes
Here’s GPS tracking:

Clouds were only at 400m elevation above Seattle. But once we cleared those, Mt Rainier’s magnificent sight came into view.

Distant Mt Rainier
Distant Mt Rainier
At 2200m elevation, light haze above us was still hindering visibility.
Mt Rainier
At 2700m elevation, now the haze was mostly gone and we got a clear view of Mount Rainier.
Mt Rainier
Mt Rainier and Distant Mt Hood
Mt Hood
This one was actually located in Oregon.

That’s followed by sights of eastern Washington State.

Columbia River
Teanaway and Yakima River Valley
Town of Ephrata and Its Airport
Town of Moses Lake
Bodies of water surrounded the city in a rather interesting shape.
Farmland in Central Washington
Farmland in East Washington

Following that were sights of eastern Montana, its mostly flat terrain carved by a few rivers.

Rural Montana
Where Smith River flew next to Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest.
Rural Montana
South of Big Snowy Mountains.
Rural Montana
Near Roundup, Montana where Musselshell River flew through.
Yellowstone River

Clouds were thick over the midwestern states, and it was a bumpy ride. Together with limited rest last night, I ended up taking more naps than my usual trans-con flight.
Until we approached Maryland and I caught a few familiar sights outside.

Winchester VA
Martinsburg WV Suburb
Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport
Also a base for West Virginia Air National Guard.
Charles Town, WV

Following that was Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Located at the intersection of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, it’s a historic town with great hiking trails nearby.

Harpers Ferry
Harpers Ferry
Bridge over Potomac River
Appalachian Mountains in Maryland

Then it’s downtown Baltimore. We circled around the city before landing to its south.

Downtown Baltimore
Downtown Baltimore
West Baltimore
Fort McHenry
Port of Baltimore
Port of Baltimore
Port of Baltimore
Francis Scott Key Bridge

Distant Baltimore Airport
Riviera Beach, MD
Shores of Severna River

Finally, after landing in Baltimore, I waited and couldn’t find my checked bags at the carousel. A chat with an airport agent revealed that they were loaded onto my originally tagged flight and landed in Washington Reagan Airport (DCA) ~~last night~~ this morning. They did offer to deliver the bags to my home, and they arrived the next morning.
That concluded this rather dramatic journey back.
END

Flight Log of Alaska Airlines Flight 176 and 922 from Juneau to Baltimore via Seattle by Huang's Site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Category: Flight Log, July 2021, Alaska, Travel Tags: Alaska Airlines

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Flight Log of Alaska Airlines Flight 176 and 922 from Juneau to Baltimore via Seattle

Flight AS176 from Juneau to Seattle

Connection at Seattle

Hotel

Flight AS922 from Seattle to Baltimore

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