Alaska Airlines Stand By Policy a Lie
 

The Contract of carriage for coach says stand by fees waived. Also says if seats available, same day as "flights". Our flights were on both dates, and had originated on same date. Their Alternative Flight Same Day said day of "flights" also. This means they are contractually responsible for providing the seats. I explained it to the Alaska Airlines supervisor at the Seattle airport with the policy in her hand and the Contract of Carriage in mine. She blew me off and said "I'm done here", and walked away. I had arrived at Seattle at 9 am and asked for stand by for myself, partner and our 2 kids. Alaska Airlines would not give us any of 16 stand by seats. They wanted an additional 120 dollars per ticket. We, with our small children sat and watched 16 people take the seats that were rightfully ours, so Alaska Airlines could screw us and try to maximize their profits, against their own Contract of Carriage, and policy. If you are interested in a class action lawsuit along these lines please e-mail jtoddjtb@yahoo.com. Thanks.

I think the problem here is understanding the nature of standby. This term and "bumping" are two terms people really mess up. to standby for a flight means there must be NO SEATS available. Zero, nada, zilch, no seats available for that flight. Or as I understand, no seats in the same class of service. And you're taking the chance that if no one shows up, you will get on. There are times checking in, I'd see people argue they wanna go standby and the agent stating there are seats so there is no standby and they have to pay for the earlier flight. Todd, your situation sounds exactly like that. But not being there I don't know what went down so I have to ask: Did you call the night before to ask if the flight was full and if standby was possible. Or did you leave early with your family, thinking you can get out early? You're arguing with the agent about policy, and while the contract does stand (I read it) it may not apply in this situation if seating is available for purchase, which would be why the agent was charging you in the first place.

The best tip I can give, and most frequent flyers follow this: If your flight is later in the day and there's a chance you can get on an earlier flight, call the night before, get a list of the earlier flights and ask if standby is available. That saves you the trouble of having to go to the airport early and possible paying more money than you would want to.

Lastly, please remember that standby doesn't mean you can do it on any flight, it means there are no seats and you will have to wait to get one.

If you're going to persue this as a class action please update us and let us know how it goes.

Hi Todd. I fly Alaska airlines quite a bit so I thought I'd try to shed some light on your situation.

Alaska has two options. Ssme-day confirmed which, for $25, you can confirm a seat on an earlier or later flight within 24 hours of the one you are ticketed for. Then they have free same-day stand-by which is only good on the same calendar day for which you are ticketed and only on flights earlier than your ticketed travel time. So let's say you are ticketed to travel on 2/1 at 3 PM. When you check-in online 1/31 @301PM you would be given the option, for $25, to change to a confirmed seat on any flight to your same destination leaving between 301PM 1/31 and 259PM 2/2. If you want to take advantage of the free same-day standby, you could only do this on flights leaving 2/1 and prior to 3PM.

Your post was a bit confusing:

Could you please post what flight you were ticketed for (date, time and origin/destination) and what flight you were hoping to stand-by for (same information) as this will give me a better idea of what exactly transpired. Also, the airline is only contractualy obligated to transport you on the flight for which you are ticketed. Standby is never a guarantee and even if there are open seats there may be weight and balance issues which may require that those seats go out empty.

Please post the requested details and I'll be able to comment further.

(Moderator - can you please move this to "Check-in/Boarding" as it is clearly not a reservations issue. Thanks.)