Cheryl Lovegreen: A Volcano Story

In December of 1989, Mt. Redoubt erupted, spewing ash over the town and interrupting air traffic. Anchorage residents knew there was a chance one of our Cook Inlet volcanoes would erupt, but it didn’t happen often enough for us to be prepared for it. Alaska Airlines, on the other hand, seemed to have a contingency plan in place and used it right away.

Redoubt threw Southcentral Alaskan holiday travel plans into disarray. Most of the airlines that serviced Anchorage discontinued their service to avoid the difficult situation a KLM 747 found itself in when it flew into a cloud of ash. All four engines became choked with ash and shut down. They were eventually restarted and the plane landed at Anchorage International safely, but heavily damaged. Alaska Airlines continued to fly, but only during daylight hours. The ash clouds could be seen on the planes’ radar, but they looked just like regular clouds and so visual identification was necessary.

My husband and I had reservations to fly to Seattle to visit with an old friend for a couple of days and then jet on to southern California to spend the holidays with my husband's family. Our tickets were with Alaska Air, so we headed out to the airport at the appointed time. We were told that passengers had two options: they could cancel their trip and receive a full refund or wait for seats on a daylight flight. Passengers had to be at the airport when our tickets came up in order to use the seats. We chose the latter option and were directed to the end of B concourse to wait.

We took seats and read or chatted with others in the same situation. I was expecting a baby in April, so I probably stood out among the passengers. I alternated between sitting and standing or walking to relieve my aching back and ate snacks as needed, but otherwise it wasn’t a bad wait. No sense in whining about the situation—it wasn’t like anyone could stop the volcano, so we just sat back and let the airlines do what they could to get us out safely. Representatives were soothing and confident in their conversations with us. We felt we were in good hands.

On one of the gate counters was a cardboard box a bit bigger than a shoebox. Our tickets were in it. Every inch or two of tickets, there was an inch and a half wide, crudely cut grey cardboard tab sticking up with a number on it. The number was the December date of the tickets filed behind the tab. Those waiting in the concourse could walk up to the box at any time and see where their tickets were. We all knew the system, so there was no need for an airline employee at the counter, and there wasn’t one. They had many other things to do. We didn’t make it the first day, so when the last flight of the day pulled away from its gate as sunset colors were appearing, we headed for home.

The next day, we drove back out to the airport and picked out seats in the concourse and began to occupy our time again. It was a congenial group of readers, knitters, and quiet talkers. Planes came and went during the day as our tickets worked their way to the front of the box. The last flight of the day was taking a bit longer to board than the staff had hoped, and the clouds in the southwest were turning from amber to orange as sunset progressed. There was some concern that the flight wouldn’t get off that evening. We were ready to head home again when our names were called. We hurried to the open gate door and settled into the last two seats on the plane. From our windows we could see the crippled KLM jet parked on the flight line that would be its home for many months.

In Seattle, we left the plane about half an hour before our original connection from Seattle to Orange County was scheduled to leave. Alaska Air staff told us where the flight south was loading and we made our way there as quickly as we could. Unfortunately, we needed to be in another concourse, and by the time we arrived they’d given our seats to standby passengers. However, there was a second flight boarding that had seats, and we could take it. The Alaska Air representative wrote Volcano across our tickets and sent us on our way. The plane was loading a gate away from where our jet from Anchorage was parked at the other concourse. So we stayed in hurry-up mode.

Apparently the tickets with “Volcano” written on them were like wild cards and so were good on any flight going to the indicated destination. Out of breath, we arrived at the appropriate gate and were ushered onto the plane. We arrived in southern California about an hour after we would have had Redoubt behaved itself. We have been devoted Alaska Airlines customers ever since.