Anyone worried about missing their connection?
 

When I booked our upcoming trip to France (next month), I scheduled us from Anchorage to Seattle the day before. Then, from Seattle to Paris the next day. So our outgoing flights are not all on one ticket.

With yesterday's 300,000 travelers who had their trips interrupted I'm starting to get worried. I booked my two trip legs separately. Consequently, I would assume Alaska Air wouldn't owe me any help if I miss my Air France flight.

Before you all jump in and tell me this was a stupid way to book, let me explain. Three years ago, I booked our flight as one continuous ticket giving us a 3-hour layover in Seattle. Alaska Air had a mechanical problem and we ended up literally having to RUN to enter our KLM flight just before the gate closed. Plus, I decided it's better for our legs to have a break between 14 hours of flying.

If we miss our Air France flight, will we lose that entire ticket price or will they try to accommodate us in next empty seats?

I am afraid you miss indeed your ticket price if you miss your Air France flight. Air France is not responsible for any problems that Alaska Air might have.

It is always better to book one ticket. It is possible to book long layovers, but in any case, the airlines are responsible to bring you to your destination if the first leg is delayed or cancelled. It may be next day and you may have to hurry but you will arrive.

If your Alaska Air flight is cancelled you may lose your ticket to France. Then you have to buy a new ticket, and probably the only available ticket will be Business or First Class.

If it's next month, I hope all this inspection stuff will be over by then, and you'll have nothing to worry about.

Can you stand by for an earlier Alaska Air flight? Maybe you can pay a fee that day for confirmed early standby, but I'm not quite sure how Alaska Air does it.

I wouldn't worry. I think you did the right thing by scheduling the overseas flight the following day. AFAIK, Alaska has quite a few daily flights between Anchorage and Seattle, and given your situation they would probably be able to get you on a later one if yours was canceled.

I generally do the same thing; go the day before my intl. flight. I figure If I have all day, I should make it. I haven't missed one yet. I think that is preferable to starting at home and risk missing the intl. flight because of an hour commuter flight. We will have to keep our fingers crossed. CJ

If you are going to miss the Air France flight you will have a good idea of this a few hours before. Check what the change fees are on your tickets. I nearly missed a USAir flight a couple of weeks ago after being stuck in Alicante. I phoned the airline who said to let them know before I missed the flight so that I could change to a later one and just pay the change fee ($200). There is also a chance that they would put you on stand by for the next available flight, US said they would do this, however, they are not obliged to do so, so I wouldn't risk losing the whole ticket.
You are probably going to make the connection anyway, just check your options beforehand.

What AM I (perhaps stupidly) missing here?

You aren't scheduled to leave for Paris on Air France until the day AFTER you arrive in Seattle on Alaska Air, right?

Are you thinking it is possible you could be delayed an entire day from getting out of Alaska and into Seattle?

And what time does that Paris flight leave?

From what I (perhaps mis-)understand you've done as well as ANYONE could have done and I think your worries based on what has recently happened to the airlines in terms of delays are not going to affect what happens NEXT MONTH.

Yes, this IS REASSURANCE..you will make the flights..you will love Paris..now, start concentrating on the important things like how are you going to spend your money when you get there.

Maybe I'm having partial paranoia because it took us a week to get out of Dublin when we were stranded and due to fly out September 12, 2001.

From reading the paper it sounded like the planes are flying so full they have nowhere to put the people who've gotten flights canceled. Hopefully, you're right and it will all be over by next month.