Passenger's Perspective

In this part of the world, transportation often poses a significant challenge. Travel demands more than a ticket.

The fog lies deep over the Cook Inlet. It does not move out to sea at sunset, but it deepens with a low in the Gulf of Alaska and an occluded front containing much moisture. This is a maritime air mass and it stops up the Cook Inlet with deep fog and low ceilings. It is solid fog between here and Anchorage. The 7 o’clock flight on ERA’s twin Otter was just canceled. My wife is packed and ready for her connections all the way to Guatemala City. She wants to go, but what are the options?

The 9 o’clock flight is over booked. Grant Aviation’s Caravan is wide open. The plane is 10 minutes out. HOM is 500’ and ½ mi. ANC is 200’ and 1 mi. The drive to Anchorage is just doable in 4 hours, just in time for the late flight on United, but the fog will be as hard on driving as on flying. What to do? Wait for the 9pm flight and take a chance of getting on. Take the Grant Aviation flight into minimums with no reliable alternate or go home. We went home.

My old operational adage, SOP actually, was and still is, “The time spent on the ground due to weather is not counted against your life!” Ok, these planes are part 21 operations between here and Anchorage; they are competent IFR operations. Flying to minimums in fog in an Otter or Caravan, however, is not the same thing as flying with CAT II or CAT III avionics on Alaska Airline’s MD-80 or United’s 757. A passenger flying anywhere beyond Anchorage or Fairbanks might well consider giving themselves additional time to accommodate challenging weather. The risks come in the form of extreme cold, ice, high wind, mist and fog. All are factors to contend with over mountainous coastal terrain. As the Frenchman would say, “Be very careful.” When one airline, cancels, it may not be prudent to fly the other one that does not. As it turned out, all three flights canceled --- to their credit.