Question on Sea/Tac Airport

[Dan16]

Hi all and thanks in advance for the help. Frontier Airlines has changed my flight times on our return home and I'm wondering if they've left me enough time to catch my ride home. We are scheduled to arrive from Anchorage on Alaska Air into Sea/Tac at 4:55am July 1st and catch a Frontier flight at 5:22am. When I originally booked these flights there was a 71 minute window which both airlines assured me was enough time to make this connection. Now the window is 57 minutes. (Frontier has told me that they recommend a 70 minute gap.) Frontier has offered to refund or rebook if I choose and I've been told that baring the unforseen we shouldn't have a problem. I'd prefer not take the refund as I got a good price on the flight and to rebook would put me into Detroit 9 hours later then the flight I have now.

My queston, given the layout of the airport and from others experiences, is this a exceptable time frame to get from Alaska Air to Frontier and get checked in? (We will be checking bags thru to Detroit at Anchorage.) You wouldn't think 14 minutes would mean much but I'd hate to have my face pressed to the glass watching the plane pull away from the gate:eek: . thanks again for the help and sorry about the length of the post. Dan

[wrp96]

No way you will make that connection. Not gonna happen. I don't think 27 minutes is even a legal connection at any airport, much less where you are also switching airlines.

 

Alaska Airlines uses Concourse C and D. Frontier flies from Concourse A on the opposite side of the airport

 

 

[Cruise Gypsy]

I agree that I don't think you will make it - that is too close of a connection and wrp96 is correct about the concourses being pretty far apart.

 

However, Alaska Air is notoriously delayed. We fly Alaska a lot but we always assume we will depart late and arrive late. So if you do decide to keep your flight this might be your only chance.

[SeattleCruiselover]

Alaska is rarely late in leaving from Sea-Tac, particularly on the first flight of the morning. This is, technically, not a legal connnection, and will need to be changed. Concourses at Sea-Tac, with the new construction, are quite far apart and take quite a time to traverse.

[briangl]

Alaska Airlines uses Concourse C and D. Frontier flies from Concourse A on the opposite side of the airport

 

 

 

Alaska also has a few gates on the north satellite terminal, but you are right the majority of their gates are on C & D.

 

I'm not sure about this but I thought that if you are transferring between airlines who are not codeshare partners that you would have to claim your luggage in baggage claim and then recheck it with Frontier. Does anyone know if this is true? If this is the case I think 70 minutes is probably pushing it.

[SeattleCruiselover]

I'm not positive Brian, but I think you are correct. Probably the only way to find out for sure is to verify with Alaska Air.

[wrp96]

I'm not sure about this but I thought that if you are transferring between airlines who are not codeshare partners that you would have to claim your luggage in baggage claim and then recheck it with Frontier. Does anyone know if this is true? If this is the case I think 70 minutes is probably pushing it.

 

 

It depends. Sometimes they will check all the way through even on airlines that aren't their partners. But he'd have to check with both Alaska and Frontier to make sure they will.

 

One thing I just noticed in his post he said the Frontier flight leaves at 5:22. Per Frontier's website it's 5:52. Still less than an hour connection time (not good) but better than the 27 minutes I originally thought.

[Cruise Gypsy]

Alaska is rarely late in leaving from Sea-Tac, particularly on the first flight of the morning. This is, technically, not a legal connnection, and will need to be changed.

 

 

Good Point. I am surprised that the reservation has stood - I always thought there was a minimum time between connection for the reservation to stand. Maybe it is because the time changed after the original booking.

 

Isn't the minimum time for a connection around an hour or 45 min.?

[wrp96]

The minimum time for a connection depends on the airport. At some it is as short as 30 minutes.

 

 

The one question though is if the ticket was booked altogether through one of the airlines or if each leg was booked separately (i.e. he bought one ticket on Alaska and then bought a separate ticket on Frontier, OR he purchased it has a multi-carrier fare through something like cheaptickets.com).

 

If he bought them separately, neither airline would know that it was "too" short a connection because they don't have access to the other airline's reservation.

 

If it was purchased as one ticket, then they would know if it was a "legal" connection.

 

From the OP's description, I can't tell how he purchased the tickets.

[Dan16]

Thanks to everyone for the advice. Yes, the 522 a.m. was a typo on my part. Everyones advice was just confirmation of the gut feeling I had that this was going to be a problem, regardless of what Frontier was saying.

The solution;

I called Alaska Air and explained what had happened and they graciously offered to move us to an earlier flight with no penalty. Thanks to all (and Alaska Air) again for the help. Dan

[wrp96]

So glad to hear that you changed that flight. Have a great cruise!