More than 12,000 passengers on Alaska Airlines had issues with their flights Saturday at Sea-Tac.
SEATAC, Wash. — Alaska Airlines has canceled and delayed dozens of flights on Saturday. This comes just a day after several off-duty pilots along the West Coast, including here in Washington, picketed over contract negotiations.
Alaska Airlines passengers were once again frustrated their flights are being canceled as the airline continues to deal with a pilot shortage.
“Frustrated, exhausted, I haven’t slept at all, I feel like no one’s taken responsibility,” said Luis Raccia.
Raccia is one of more than 12,000 Alaska Airline passengers that have had their flights cancelled on Saturday, which equates to about seven percent of Alaska’s overall operations. He’s just trying to get back home to Boston, but doesn’t know when that will be.
“When I ask the assistant, what’s going on they don’t know anything I don’t know what’s going on,” said Raccia. “Nobody knows anything.”
Raccia’s flight getting canceled is just a day after several off-duty pilots along the West Coast conducted an informational picket hoping for better pay, more flexible schedules and more job protections. A representative for the pilots said that picket didn’t cause any of these cancellations and delays the airline has been experiencing the past two days.
“We’re equally as curious today and I think it’s actually a question that’s best posed to the company,” said Will McQuillen, the Chairman of the Alaska Airlines Master Executive Council
But he did say his group warned the airline about cancellations potentially happening as we draw closer to the busy travel months.
“Staffing has been a concern and something we’ve spoke to them about for many, many months actually starting the conversations back last year that this would be inevitable if we didn’t have a contract in place to help us retain and attract pilots,” said McQuillen.
Alaska sent KING a statement that didn’t mention any pilot shortage.
But it did acknowledge the large number of cancellations and said, “We apologize to all of our guests who we let down.”
Despite the apology, Raccia wasn’t having it, and just wants to get home.
“At this point, to be honest I don’t trust Alaska, so I don’t want to fly back to Boston with Alaska, so I’m trying to find a different airline,” said Raccia.
Officials with Alaska Airlines said there could be more cancellations throughout Saturday night and Sunday.