Copyright Anchorage Daily News
As flight cuts mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration took effect Friday, the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport appeared to have avoided much of the impact. Alaska Airlines, the dominant airline in Alaska, pre-canceled only a single flight — a cargo plane to Bethel — in the state on Friday, said Tim Thompson, a spokesperson with the company. He said the company has worked to protect remote, flight-dependent communities from the cuts. Alaska Travel Desk, a travel agency in Juneau and Skagway tracking the impacts, said in a statement that the majority of the flight cuts were not on the West Coast. Instead, other airports were seeing more of the cuts, such as Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Chicago O’Hare International Airport. “While we’re seeing reductions by Alaska and Delta Air Lines, flights to and from Alaska so far are not affected,” said Nate Vallier, a partner at Alaska Travel Desk, in a statement. The FAA has ordered airlines to cut flights by 10% at 40 major airports, including in Anchorage, by next Friday as the government shutdown has dragged on for well over a month. Airlines were required to start at 4% flight cuts on Friday and ramp up from there, the agency said. Before the mandate, short-term delays had already cropped up at airports around the nation as air traffic controllers stopped showing up for work, after working without pay. [Alaska travelers have big questions. Here are a few answers and options while the shutdown continues] Alaska Airlines said Friday that so far, it has been able to rebook all guests nationwide who had been affected by canceled flights on Friday and Saturday. The airline expects to cut between 36 and 40 flights daily through Sunday, nationwide, it said. The airline will continue to fly more than 1,500 flights daily. Thompson said in an email that he didn’t know if any of those flights to be cut over the weekend would affect Anchorage. “Our goal is to comply with the order while maintaining the highest possible schedule reliability,” the airline said. “The specific routes affected may vary from day to day as we continue applying our approach of prioritizing high-frequency routes to minimize disruption for our guests.” FlightAware, a flight-tracking website, showed six canceled flights in Anchorage on Friday afternoon, all related to Alaska Airlines. A cargo flight between Bethel and Anchorage was the lone Anchorage International flight canceled due to the FAA mandate, Thompson said. Another cargo flight with routes that include Anchorage and Dillingham was down due to maintenance. Also, passenger flights between Kodiak and Anchorage experienced weather disruptions, he said. FlightAware also showed that some passenger flights were delayed in Anchorage on Friday, along with several cargo flights, after the city was hit with several inches of new snow. Teri Lindseth, development manager with the Alaska International Airport System, said Anchorage International experienced a higher-than-usual number of parked aircraft due to the weather. “At this time, it is too early to determine whether there are any operational impacts related to the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Department of Transportation temporary airline schedule reductions,” she said in a statement. The state agency also created a new website to provide information about the flight cuts along with tips for travelers, Lindseth said.
