At SeaTac, and why [some] Horizon ramp agents suck

After flying in last night and spending the night in a priceline hotel, I'm back at the airport to continue the journey to DC for the wedding of two friends. I ended up getting lucky with my flights: I was booked on AS 162, didn't get on standby on AS 96, got rolled over to AS 148, but then AS 96 went mechanical and they had to swap equipment, and AS 162 was delayed, so of the three ANC-SEA flights, I got lucky with Door #2.

The bus from SeaTac to downtown Seattle, #174, was damn near intolerable. Since the #194 "express" (a very relative term) doesn't run after about 9:15pm, I had to take #174, the milk run. In was a nasty slog, with about half the bus yammering loudly into their cell phones (many of them ramp/handlers for QX, i.e., Horizon Airlines) and then yammering excitedly to one another about what they'd just yammered about on their cell phones. One of the worst offenders moved to jam in next to me, in a sideways facing seat that is already somewhat cramped due to the metal poles, and remained there until he disembarked, despite there being at least half a dozen available seats immediately nearby.

Two of the QX ramp agents actively tried to cut in line getting on the bus (for no apparent reason, since the bus was not full, and there were only about a dozen of us unlucky enough to be standing there and waiting for it.) A moderate bit of stinkeye and asserting myself prevented both, at least from cutting me off, though they actively cut several other people.

Confidential to Horizon Airlines (and/or Menzies, if QX ramp work is also subcontracted to Menzies, as AS is): you might want to ask your employees to take off their company clothing before acting like complete asshats for 45 minutes in public.

In other news, I spent about 45 minutes at the Alaska MVP/First Class ticket counter with an extremely pleasant employee, while we sorted out my fouled up reservation. Because a multi-city itinerary (totally legal, and booked through alaskaair.com) included two ANC-SEA and SEA-ANC trips over a week, when I boarded the first of these legs the computer decided to 'use' both of my roundtrip sets of flight coupons. Like I said to the agent, if you can have one cookie, why not have two?

In the Board Room now, enjoying the free wifi, free Alaskan Amber, free chips, and awaiting the free veggie chili. Gotta fill up before the 5.5 hour SEA-DCA flight!