Luggage Disaster Alaska Airlines

Joined
Oct 8, 2019
Messages
2,956
This is why you take clear photos when checking in and collecting luggage. Any issue you immediate call it out and daal with it then and there.

Had Alaska Air beat up a Pelican case last year. Handle is nearly trashed as well as had some tire tracks. Not worth my time to fight for $200 to replace.

Baggage handlers do not treat luggage with care. Baggage handlers will attempt to damage certain luggage that conflicts with their beliefs. If you really want to get screwed over, try getting reimbursed when your backstraps and tenderloins disappear.
 
Joined
Jun 15, 2015
Messages
368
Location
Washington
I would politely escalate and make note of the circumstances.
i might have missed it, but how far out of the 24 hour window were you? They unfortunately had to change their policy due to people taking advantage of it (similar to return policies at stores like REI, etc)
anyway, i would call back and try to get someone else and *calmly* discuss.
Alaska airlines usually has A+ customer service.
But again, no excuse for not going directly to customer service AT the airport. I get you were tired and frustrated, but that would have been number 1 on my priority list, especially with the cargo you had INSIDE that case.
 
Joined
Mar 15, 2017
Messages
867
Location
PA
I know what I want to do in the first 24 hours of taking a big trip is getting on the phone with customer service.

What ever happened with the rifle? Was it ok? if so that is a really good sales pitch for that case because it saw some abuse.
 
Joined
Nov 3, 2017
Messages
1,456
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AK
If you really want to get screwed over, try getting reimbursed when your backstraps and tenderloins disappear.
I know of a Rokslide lurker that shipped his moose AK Air Cargo this year. It showed up a day earlier than scheduled (it was a 6 hour drive to pick up so work was taken off to plan for pick up the next day). It was not frozen on arrival. The cargo office at the final destination said it needed to be picked up that day. The guy was able to find a generous friend of a friend who was a hunter who picked it up and threw it in his freezer until it could be picked up the following day. The third-party man called the owner of the moose when he got it all situated and told him about the moose and that his box of halibut fillets is thawed out and probably not salvageable. He never had a box of halibut fillets. So someone paid money to go to AK, paid for a charter, paid processing and shipping, to have their ruined halibut shipped to a random guy at a random airport. And another guy had a good portion of his moose ruined because AK air cargo didn't do what they said they would.

AK Air Cargo lost my set of Arctic Oven poles last spring. I talked to every person I could and in the end they gave me $50 for my $400 tent poles. There's another thread somewhere here where someone shipped thousands of dollars of rafts this summer and they're all gone with no reimbursement. When I fly AK Airlines to hunt now, I ship everything with a different local cargo company and just check a rifle case and carry on my optics. I'm done with giving AK Airlines or Cargo any more of my items than needed.
 
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
7,390
Location
Chugiak, Alaska
I know of a Rokslide lurker that shipped his moose AK Air Cargo this year. It showed up a day earlier than scheduled (it was a 6 hour drive to pick up so work was taken off to plan for pick up the next day). It was not frozen on arrival. The cargo office at the final destination said it needed to be picked up that day. The guy was able to find a generous friend of a friend who was a hunter who picked it up and threw it in his freezer until it could be picked up the following day. The third-party man called the owner of the moose when he got it all situated and told him about the moose and that his box of halibut fillets is thawed out and probably not salvageable. He never had a box of halibut fillets. So someone paid money to go to AK, paid for a charter, paid processing and shipping, to have their ruined halibut shipped to a random guy at a random airport. And another guy had a good portion of his moose ruined because AK air cargo didn't do what they said they would.

AK Air Cargo lost my set of Arctic Oven poles last spring. I talked to every person I could and in the end they gave me $50 for my $400 tent poles. There's another thread somewhere here where someone shipped thousands of dollars of rafts this summer and they're all gone with no reimbursement. When I fly AK Airlines to hunt now, I ship everything with a different local cargo company and just check a rifle case and carry on my optics. I'm done with giving AK Airlines or Cargo any more of my items than needed.

I feel your pain. I have a AK Airlines credit card and, because of that and the fact that I live in AK, I probably use AK Airlines for over 90% of my commercial air travel. That said, it would take me way more time than I have here to detail all the issues I’ve had with AK Air throughout the years. Whenever I fly with them anymore, I pretty much just factor in certain issues like delayed flights, canceled flights, sitting on the tarmac for hours on end and not being able to get off the plane, damaged luggage, etc. etc. It really baffles me when I hear or read about the great customer service that Alaska Airlines provides, because I rarely see it.


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wapitibob

WKR
Joined
Feb 24, 2012
Messages
5,365
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Bend Oregon
Sucks for sure but should have reported immediately. They have no idea what hapoens to the case once you drive away.
 
Last edited:

fatbacks

WKR
Joined
Aug 26, 2017
Messages
1,153
Location
Interior AK
Flew into Fairbanks last night with Alaska Airlines. After landing the announce "Welcome to Fairbanks, bad news, we left 24 bags in Anchorage. Come back tomorrow to grab your bags"

One of those bags happened to have a pile of goose and mallard meat from our trip.

My neighbor just arrived home last week and Alaska Airlines lost their bags on the way out of Alaska. Three weeks later they still cannot find the bags.

Can't make this up how bad their service is these days.
 
Joined
Oct 8, 2019
Messages
2,956
I know of a Rokslide lurker that shipped his moose AK Air Cargo this year. It showed up a day earlier than scheduled (it was a 6 hour drive to pick up so work was taken off to plan for pick up the next day). It was not frozen on arrival. The cargo office at the final destination said it needed to be picked up that day. The guy was able to find a generous friend of a friend who was a hunter who picked it up and threw it in his freezer until it could be picked up the following day. The third-party man called the owner of the moose when he got it all situated and told him about the moose and that his box of halibut fillets is thawed out and probably not salvageable. He never had a box of halibut fillets. So someone paid money to go to AK, paid for a charter, paid processing and shipping, to have their ruined halibut shipped to a random guy at a random airport. And another guy had a good portion of his moose ruined because AK air cargo didn't do what they said they would.

AK Air Cargo lost my set of Arctic Oven poles last spring. I talked to every person I could and in the end they gave me $50 for my $400 tent poles. There's another thread somewhere here where someone shipped thousands of dollars of rafts this summer and they're all gone with no reimbursement. When I fly AK Airlines to hunt now, I ship everything with a different local cargo company and just check a rifle case and carry on my optics. I'm done with giving AK Airlines or Cargo any more of my items than needed.
Ouch.
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2013
Messages
2,228
Location
New Orleans, La.
Send those pics to the manufacturer and I bet they send you a new one and use that one in an ad

Well, if I were them, that’s what I’d do.

I would too. I would also include a photo of the ticket or flight record just to show that it happened while handling in air travel. I wouldn't want them to think my 2 year old was chewing on it or it fell off the back of my pickup on the Interstate. The fact that it saved the contents during the gorilla baggage handlers for the airlines would definitely be more of an incentive for them to post photos of it in their ads.
 

hh76

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Aug 2, 2021
Messages
232
I can't believe you wouldn't have brought this up to them immediately? Did you at least check the gun condition right away?

I don't blame them for not reimbursing all that much, they followed their process, and you were outside of their deadline.
 
OP
Steve O

Steve O

WKR
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Feb 29, 2012
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Michigan
Gentlemen, this was not a post of complaint it was one of informing.

For all those instructing me what I should have done, it was a red eye flight from Kodiak Island that started at 7am to the Eastern time zone. That’s a LOT of travel time. We waited over an hour for the luggage to show up. There were 1/2 dozen people already in line and I was pissed and knew it would not be in my best interest to wait longer. I wrote it off as a crappy loss and headed off to work.

After catching up from 12 days gone I decided to make a claim. I hoped to find out what happened, not to “get” anything. I’ll buy a new case. It did its job.

I miss Delta flying into Kodiak via their long gone partnership with Alaska Air. That worked perfect for me as I’m Platinum there and lower than low on AA.

I knew nothing of the 24 hour window for the claim, but you all do now. In the end, there are not many options to get to Kodiak; Raven was (are they back from bankruptcy?) much worse and I don’t have time for the ferry.
 

Reburn

Mayhem Contributor
Joined
Feb 10, 2019
Messages
2,881
Location
Central Texas
Flew into Fairbanks last night with Alaska Airlines. After landing the announce "Welcome to Fairbanks, bad news, we left 24 bags in Anchorage. Come back tomorrow to grab your bags"

One of those bags happened to have a pile of goose and mallard meat from our trip.

My neighbor just arrived home last week and Alaska Airlines lost their bags on the way out of Alaska. Three weeks later they still cannot find the bags.

Can't make this up how bad their service is these days.

This reminds me of my trip on Penair to cold bay in 16'
 
Joined
Jun 3, 2020
Messages
613
Location
Eagle River, AK
No other options to get to kodiak unless you want to charter. We just got our cargo back from AA from our kodiak hunt. Took a week and a half. They did say they were very backed up with gear when we dropped it off. We used ACE to cargo our stuff to kodiak but due to issues leaving kodiak we had to use AA cargo.

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Bear_Hunter

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Oct 10, 2017
Messages
153
Location
Willow, AK
Not that would necessarily help with the damaged bag situation, but for the lost bag situation, I've heard of folks slipping one of those apple air tags in their luggage. Seems like a good idea especially for bow/rifle cases.
 
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