Missed Flight #3

I missed the third flight of my flying career this summer. I was trying to head out of town on a Friday night to FW&BF's wedding. I was really excited; I'm a huge wedding fan, and I was particularly excited to see FW&BF and go to her wedding - I knew it'd be great.

I got to the airport over an hour ahead of time; I was already checked in, and I had no bags to check at all. My flight was a red eye - leaving at 12:45AM. It seemed like the hour would be plenty of time, given that it generally takes less than 30 minutes to check in, check your bags, pass through security, and get to your gate in Anchorage. Or so I thought...

When I walked into the airport, I saw that the security line was extremely long. It was all the way out past the zig-zagging Disneyland ropes and snaking around the airport ticketing area. I got in line, and I tried to just ignore the passing time. It appeared that airlines were pulling people out for immediately departing flights, so I figured it would all be okay. As it got nearer to my departure time, I began to notice that they weren't pulling out any flights for Alaska Airlines. They were mainly for Continental, with a couple of the other big carriers thrown in there. I still tried to maintain my composure. I couldn't believe that I'd get to the airport an hour early, and I'd end up missing my flight.

By the time that I actually made it up to the scanners and TSA agents, there were only about 15 minutes left to make my flight. I was feeling a bit worried at that point. The TSA agent noticed me rushing, and he asked what time my flight was. When I told him, he said that I'd make it.

I got through security with a few minutes to spare, and I took off running down the terminal.

As I got to my gate, I saw that the door was closed to the jetway. I went up to the counter anyway. By my watch I still had 10 minutes to spare. I stood in front of the gate agent, and he did his best to ignore me. He seriously said nothing and didn't even look up from the keyboard that he was madly typing away on. Eventually I asked him if I could still get on my flight and what had happened to my seat. He said that they gave away my seat, and he offered no other help. After a bit he realized that he hadn't gotten rid of me and directed me to the customer service center just down the hall.

I dejectedly made my way down there, only to find that it was closed. So I walked to another gate and found a helpful gate agent.
She tried to get me on another flight, but then realized that the only flight she could get me on would get me into Seattle, but that I wouldn't make the connection for it anyway. She also explained that on that particular weekend in June, (the first weekend in June), they had added 9 red-eyes for the summer. While they added all those flights, they didn't actually add any additional TSA people. So that explains it. Noted: make sure to add an hour of time to your airport arrival time in the summer when you are departing from Anchorage.