Unalaska Airport (Stephanie Joyce)

Flight delays are a common occurrence in Unalaska, and this spring was no exception. Passengers stranded at the Tom Madsen Airport in May had not one, but two airlines to complain to, but that didn't get them anywhere. 

KUCB’s Lauren Rosenthal is examining the future of air service to Unalaska in a three-part series this week. In part two, representatives from both Alaska Airlines and Peninsula Airways explain why flying to Unalaska is so difficult. 

The service isn’t supposed to be any different from what Alaska Airlines offers itself.

Scott Habberstad: "Think of Unalaska as actually flying on Alaska Airlines. When you’re getting on a PenAir flight, that’s really an Alaska Airlines flight."

That’s Alaska Airlines sales director Scott Habberstad. He says Alaska Airlines charters the flights from PenAir and operates them under their own safety standards. Passengers get perks, like frequent flier miles and free checked bags if they’re Alaskan.

But when something goes wrong, it becomes apparent that a charter flight is not an Alaska Airlines flight. The rules for rebooking passengers are different because two airlines have to coordinate. PenAir CEO Danny Seybert explains:

Danny Seybert: "Alaska Airlines calls and says, ‘We have a weather delay in Dutch. What can you do tomorrow?’ We juggle the airplanes."

On another route, Alaska Airlines might automatically rebook customers. But PenAir only has 10 aircraft in the state of Alaska. Finding an empty seat -- or an empty plane -- isn’t easy.

So every cancelled passenger goes on a standby list. But the standby list isn’t usually shared with passengers. It’s kept private between the airlines, so most passengers don’t know when they’re supposed to be leaving. And that creates a slew of other problems.

Habberstad: "What happens a lot of the time is people get impatient. Seafood companies get impatient. And they hop on another airline."

Meaning, they charter a plane, at great expense. If enough people leave on their own, other standby passengers may suddenly move to the top of the list. If they aren’t in the terminal, ready to board, they miss their new flight.

This system -- the standby list -- is supposed to give the airlines time to coordinate without dragging passengers into it. But not sharing information with passengers creates other problems.

Seybert is the CEO of PenAir, and Habberstad markets this route for Alaska Airlines. And they know that this system doesn’t always work.

Seybert: "We both personally have worked many many standby lists. And it’s not something you see in a company, where you have people at our level of management go to the counter and get involved in a standby list. You have people constantly yelling at you, asking to be bumped up on the list, or, 'Where am I on the list?'"

Habberstad: "If I had a silver bullet and it had one shot, that’s what I would shoot to fix."

Fixing the standby list would clear up confusion among passengers. But it wouldn’t fix the underlying issue -- why people get stranded in the first place.

There are a few reasons for that, but Seybert says PenAir is to blame for a major one:

Seybert: "The airplane wasn’t designed to do what we’re using it for today and that’s the biggest challenge."

PenAir only owns Saab 340 planes. They’re good for commuter flights, Seybert says -- not 800-mile hauls across the Bering Sea.

Seybert: "So here we are, on a perfect day, we’re taking a 34-passenger airplane knowing that because of the stage length and the fuel requirements, and maintaining the safety parameters, we can only take 23."

The solution to that would be larger planes. But that’s expensive for PenAir, and it might exacerbate another issue:

Habberstad: "Everybody wants to go to Unalaska at one time or from Unalaska at one time. And so you’ll look during [the fishing] A season. We’re full one way and completely empty the other."

That’s just the nature of the fishing business. If PenAir switched to bigger planes, there would be just be more empty seats to fill. And neither airline wants to take on that financial burden.

Lopsided demand, bad weather, upstart charter services stealing passengers: Those issues aren’t going away. And on top of them, there’s going to be more demand.

Habberstad: "The reality is, you know, we didn’t expect Shell last year. I mean, Shell hit us hard."

Last year’s drilling season is nothing compared to what might be ahead.

The Alaska Department of Transportation is already projecting 40,000 passengers will fly out of the Unalaska airport by 2020, compared to 28,000 that went through five years ago. Add in oil company personnel, and it could be a lot more than that.

Habberstad says the load would be welcome.

Habberstad: "It’s good for the community, because it’s more business that’s coming in. It’s more opportunity that’s coming in. The community continues to grow and strengthen."

But for a community that’s off the road system, growth is tied to reliable transportation. That means more capacity, but it also means on-time service and better communication between the airlines and their passengers.

Those aren’t easy fixes, but with increasing traffic on the route, the airlines -- and Unalaska -- can’t afford to wait. 

In part three of our series, KUCB's Lauren Rosenthal looks at Unalaska's options for improving air service.