A family of four booked a ticket on Alaska Airlines, only to incorrectly be denied boarding due to the airline having some sort of a glitch in its system when it comes to visa requirements. They were rebooked, only to be downgraded, have similar issues on the next flight, and nearly miss their flight. But they didn’t miss it… instead, they were kicked off the plane by the purser, after another employee insisted they couldn’t have their assigned seats. Ouch.
Family removed from Alaska flight due to visa rule glitch
OMAAT reader Christophe just shared with me what happened to him, his wife, and their two young kids, while attempting to fly on June 23, 2026, on Alaska Airlines from Missoula (MSO) to Seattle (SEA) to Vancouver (YVR). They all have Swiss passports and are permanent residents of the United States, and travel to Canada multiple times per year. In this case they booked four first class tickets to see the World Cup game between Switzerland and Canada.
Since 2022, Canada hasn’t required permanent residents of the United States to get a visa for entry, regardless of their nationality. Christophe had traveled to Canada several times since that policy change, but just to be on the safe side, he even checked travel requirements in the Alaska app… which confirmed they wouldn’t need a visa.
They tried to check in online, but couldn’t do so, as the system said a document check was required at the airport. Fair enough. They arrived at the airport with plenty of time, despite being in first class with no checked bags.
Christophe explains that the first agent who helped them seemed to be inexperienced, and struggled. Her system couldn’t recognize their passports, so she had to enter all the information manually. She then told them they needed a visa for Canada. So Christophe showed her the Alaska app, and even the Canada immigration website, which confirmed no visa was required.
Then a more senior employee showed up, who Christophe says immediately blamed them, and told them they didn’t have the correct documents. After playing with the system for a while, the agent finally called someone at Alaska in Seattle, at which point he found out the passengers were correct. Their boarding passes were issued, they breezed through security, and they arrived at the gate toward the end of boarding.
However, when boarding passes were scanned at the gate, there was still a warning in the system about how a visa was required, so they were pulled to the side. They once again called someone at Alaska in Seattle, who said the process was to essentially offload them from the plane, and then reissue the boarding passes.
Side note — as this happened, they saw their first class seats being given away to people on the upgrade list. Long story short, the process was manual and time consuming, and took so long that the flight left without them, as the captain said the flight had to be closed, so they were denied boarding.
They were then rebooked on an itinerary leaving almost six hours later, downgraded to coach. The agents claimed everything was solved, so they shouldn’t have any issues on their new itinerary. No compensation, meal voucher, etc., was offered, even though the travelers clearly did nothing wrong here.
Christophe also notes how one of the agents said to his colleague that this was finally done and “we can get all of these out of our face.” Christophe mentioned that he heard that, at which point the agent claimed he was referring to the old boarding passes. Either way, not very professional, especially when it’s the passengers who were most inconvenienced.
The same issue happened again, and then they were kicked off
Hours later they arrived back at the gate. They asked if they could board with first class (keep in mind they were downgraded), so that if there was again an issue with their travel documents, they’d have enough time to solve this. That request was denied, and they were told there would be no issues.
Well, when it came time to board, guess what? The system once again flagged them for not having visas. This time around that whole process of offloading and loading the passengers back onto the flight happened again, but the process took around 30 minutes, and during that time, they patiently stayed seated in the gate area.
The agents said all was good, and they were boarded without having their boarding passes scanned, to avoid that issue. They didn’t realize that in the process, the agents had changed their seats on them. This is where the story goes from bad to worse.
On the plane, Christophe claims there was an Alaska employee with her badge seated in the middle seat in row 10, seat 10B. Christophe’s wife had been assigned seat 10A, so asked to access her seat, but the employee declined, and called the purser instead, telling her that “you told me the three seats were empty,” or something along those lines. The purser instead instructed Christophe’s wife to take seat 9E, a middle seat a row up.
Christophe explains that this rubbed him the wrong way, after such a disastrous travel day, feeling like the purser was unfairly trying to keep a row of three seats for her friend, while pushing his wife into another middle seat.
At this point, the purser left, and then the more helpful of the two gate agents boarded the plane. Christophe says he expressed calmly the situation, and the agent apologized. He asked him to please record the names of the two employees, so that he could reference the situation in a complaint, and so there was a witness.
Another 10 minutes passed, at which point the gate agent came back and asked the family to deplane, stating he would explain the situation outside. Christophe says the gate agent was incredibly gracious, and explained that the purser said she felt uncomfortable with having them onboard the flight, and of course the captain sided with the purser. Christophe insists he didn’t raise his voice or anything else, and found the response extreme.
While the friendly agent tried to rebook them, at this point they declined, given that they figured the same isa issue would happen again on the next flight. They felt like Alaska just couldn’t take them to Canada. So within five minutes he bought a ticket on Delta, checked in online without issues, and boarded 30 minutes later. It did cost the family of four an extra $2,538, though.
This is shameful on Alaska’s part, on many levels
Christophe is a level-headed guy based on all my interactions with him, and I’m inclined to believe his version of events. As I see it, there are a few different issues here.
First — and this is something Alaska needs to fix ASAP — there’s clearly a system glitch the airline has when it comes to entry requirements for Canada for those who are permanent residents of the United States. Maybe this is somehow specific to Swiss nationals, for some reason, since I imagine if all permanent residents face this, it would’ve been fixed by now.
The airline needs to address this directly with Christophe and make things right, as he and his family were incorrectly denied boarding due to a system glitch on Alaska’s end. Period.
It’s disappointing that even with the rebooking, this exact same situation happened the next time around, despite reassurance that it wouldn’t. The ground staff should’ve proactively handled this, and for that matter, the request to board with first class shouldn’t have been too much to ask for in the case of downgraded passengers who had an ongoing issue.
Lastly, the fact that his family was literally kicked off the flight just adds insult to injury. Of course we can’t know for sure what exactly was going on here, but I can understand Christophe’s frustration when they were already inconvenienced so much, only to have someone block a passenger from getting to their seat because someone with an airline badge was promised an entire row of seats?
I hope both the purser and the passenger with the Alaska badge are called in to explain their actions. Quite frankly, Alaska is an airline that I typically find has among the best employees of any US airline, so I’m disappointed to hear this happening at the carrier, as I’d expect better from Alaska. Frankly, this sounds more like behavior I’d expect at a carrier like American.
Bottom line
A family that booked first class tickets on Alaska to Canada had quite the travel experience. First they were denied boarding since Alaska has some system glitch whereby it seems to demand visas for at least some permanent residents of the United States traveling to Canada. They were unable to resolve that in time, causing them to be rebooked on the next flight, hours later.
That’s not the end of the drama, though. On the next flight, the same issue persisted, though they got onboard at the last minute… only to be kicked off after the purser felt “uncomfortable” with them, after someone with an Alaska badge reportedly refused to let them take their assigned seats, because she wanted a row to herself… or something.
No matter how you slice it, this sounds like a horrible travel experience.
What do you make of this bizarre Alaska travel experience?