En route to the airport from their Bainbridge Island home early on April 1 for a long-planned trip to a wedding in Tampa, Florida, the Abarbanel family received a notification from Alaska Airlines: Their flight was canceled.
That weekend and in the days after, a pilot shortage at Alaska caused hundreds of such last-minute flight cancellations that fueled anger among tens of thousands of passengers delayed or stranded.
The chaos was the last straw for the Abarbanels, who said they had three previous Alaska flights this year either canceled or changed at short notice.
