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Airfare wars start with no notice. But staying informed helps a savvy traveler find the best deals.

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Airfare wars start with no notice. But staying informed helps a savvy traveler find the best deals.


Last week I was staying up late and getting up early to review the latest versions of on-again, off-again fare skirmishes both in Europe and between Anchorage, Hawaii and the West Coast.

Just to be clear: Airlines don’t run ads or issue news releases announcing that fares are going down or popping right back up. But if you happen to be planning a trip in the midst of a fare war, you could score a really good deal. Last Tuesday and Wednesday, some travelers scored tickets to Hawaii on Delta for $128 each way. Anchorage-Portland tickets were available for $108 one-way, before popping back up on Thursday.

At the same time, a big discount wave washed over Europe. Delta and United were the major players, with basic economy fares as low as $456 round-trip between Anchorage or Fairbanks and Barcelona.

Those fares to Europe all have popped back up to the $600 range for round-trip tickets. That’s not a bad price for fall or winter travel to Europe, but I’m quite confident the rates will drop again.

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All of the great rates I found were basic economy fares. Travelers buying the cheapest fares board last, which means there’s no overhead bin space. They receive less credit toward their frequent flyer plan and cannot choose their seats in advance. The budget travelers are also last in line for any upgrades, too.

So, the challenge for mileage hounds and upgrade-seekers is how much extra airlines will charge for those add-ons: advance seat assignments, full mileage credit and a decent shot at an upgrade.

[US proposal would bar airline fees for parents to sit beside kids on flights]

When the basic economy fares first were introduced, the upcharge was about $30 each way for most destinations. Between Anchorage and Seattle, Delta still charges $30 more for the main cabin fares, while Alaska Airlines charges $35 each way.

For Saver travelers, Alaska Air awards 30% of the actual miles flown toward a traveler’s Mileage Plan account. Delta doesn’t allow any SkyMiles credit for basic economy flyers.

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South of Seattle, the spread between the basic and main cabin increases. Between Anchorage and Honolulu, Alaska Air charges $55 one-way for an upcharge to a main cabin fare on its nonstop flight. Delta charges $50.

Travelers headed to Chicago can fly nonstop from Anchorage on Alaska or United. American also flies each day — but their flights are more expensive. I don’t know why. Both Alaska and United charge $40 each way for an upcharge to the main cabin.

United’s basic economy is particularly onerous regarding carry-on luggage. Unless you pay the upcharge, you’re not allowed to bring aboard a standard-size rolling suitcase to stuff in the overhead bin. If you get to the gate and the agent busts you for trying to smuggle on your suitcase, there’s an extra $25 penalty in addition to the bag fee.

Between Anchorage and Washington, D.C., Alaska Airlines charges between $50 and $84 each way for the upcharge to main. United charges between $50 and $74 each way. Delta charges between $30 and $65 each way.

If you’re traveling within Alaska on Alaska Airlines, all the economy seats are main cabin seats. Further, travelers can check up to three bags at no additional cost.

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Both Alaska Airlines and Delta Air passengers can check two bags at no additional charge when traveling to or from Alaska and the Lower 48 or Hawaii. Delta travelers who reside in Alaska must belong to the airline’s SkyMiles loyalty plan. Alaska Air travelers must belong to its Club 49 plan for residents.

Travelers to Europe face a different equation when it comes to the difference between basic economy and the main cabin. The upcharge to main cabin also includes a checked bag.

If you’re flying to Paris, the cheapest fare on Delta in mid-October is $591 round-trip. A checked bag will cost you an additional $150. If you choose to pay $210 more, you can pick your seat in advance and get your first checked bag at no additional cost.

United offers the same package, for a little less: $200. American also charges $200 more and includes a pre-assigned seat and one checked bag (up to 23 kilograms).

Travelers to Asia have a few more twists in the equation. Flying to Singapore, United Airlines has a great fare of $798 round-trip. There’s just one stop in San Francisco on the outbound date I checked (Aug. 29). Even a basic economy ticket includes one checked bag. An upcharge to the main cabin for $160 round-trip includes the fee for a second checked bag.

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By the way, United’s return flight from Singapore goes through San Francisco and Denver. It makes for a 30-hour travel day.

Traveling from Anchorage to Tokyo on Delta, the cost for basic economy is $1,552 round-trip. That price includes a free checked bag. The upcharge to main is $260. Once you’ve got your credit card out, though, Delta is likely to tempt you with an upgrade to Comfort+ for an additional $360. That’s a total of $2,172, or $620 more than the basic economy rate. The biggest benefit with Comfort+ is a few inches of extra legroom.

Depending on the airline, travelers to Asia may be able to choose a seat in advance and pay for it even if they’re traveling on a basic economy ticket.

[With seat sizes and passenger priorities changing, the cheapest ticket isn’t always the best]

There are different terms and conditions for traveling to different continents, including South America and Africa. The take-home message is this: The advertised price probably is not what you’re going to pay when you check out. In addition to basic vs. main, there may be additional fees for preferred seating, for any food you pre-order or if you want to pay for priority boarding or to go to a lounge before your flight.

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For travelers who compare airlines before making a decision, these additional fees and options make the job harder. A travel agent can advise you on the best options for a flight, including whether or not you’re likely to make a tight connection in … say … Seattle. But the agent will charge an additional fee. Even so, if booking travel is not your core competence, an agent’s counsel could save you a lot of money and aggravation.

It can be confusing to keep track of what airline offers this or that. But it’s worth it to be aware that the optional fees will boost the cost of your next trip.





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Alaska High School Girls Basketball 2026 ASAA State Championship Brackets – March 10

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Alaska High School Girls Basketball 2026 ASAA State Championship Brackets – March 10


The 2026 Alaska high school girls basketball state championships begin this week, and High School On SI has brackets for all four classifications.

The brackets will be updated with scores and matchups throughout the week.

All four classifications will play their state championship games at Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage.

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The 1A and 2A championships run March 11-14. Classes 3A and 4A play the following week, March 18-21.

Alaska High School Girls Basketball 2026 State Championship Brackets, Matchups, Schedule – March 10

3/11 – Shaktoolik (1) vs. Arlicaq (16)

3/11 – Kake (8) vs. Tri-Valley (9)

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3/11 – Fort Yukon (4) vs. Andreafski (13)

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3/11 – Sand Point (5) vs. Napaaqutgmiut (12)

3/11 – Scammon Bay (2) vs. Nunamiut (15)

3/11 – Akiuk Memorial (7) vs. Newhalen (10)

3/11 – Davis-Romoth (3) vs. Cook Inlet Academy (14)

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3/11 – Hoonah (6) vs. Shishmaref (11)


3/12 – Seward (1) vs. Chevak (8)

3/12 – Metlakatla (4) vs. Cordova (5)

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3/12 – Craig (2) vs. Susitna Valley (7)

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3/12 – Glennallen (3) vs. Degnan (6)


3/18 – Barrow (1) vs. Kotzebue (8)

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3/18 – Grace Christian (4) vs. Galena (5)

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3/18 – Monroe Catholic (2) vs. Delta (7)

3/18 – Mt. Edgecumbe (3) vs. Kenai Central (6)

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3/18 – Mountain City Christian Academy (1) vs. North Pole (8)

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3/18 – Colony (4) vs. West (5)

3/18 – Bartlett (2) vs. Juneau-Douglas (7)

3/18 – Wasilla (3) vs. Service (6)


More Coverage from High School On SI



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Made In The USA: The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company

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Made In The USA: The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company


This is the Alaska Wall Tent by the Alaska Gear Company, each one is made in the United States from Sunforger 13oz DLX, a double-filled, pre-shrunk, marine-grade canvas ideal for longterm outdoor use.

The Alaska Wall Tent comes in an array of sizes and versions, allowing you to choose the one that best suits your individual use-case. They’re all individually made in Alaska, and perhaps even more importantly, they’re all tested extensively to be able to handle local conditions.

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 5

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 2

Image DescriptionThis is the Alaska Wall Tent by the Alaska Gear Company, each one is made in the United States from Sunforger 13oz DLX, a double-filled, pre-shrunk, marine-grade canvas ideal for longterm outdoor use.

History Speedrun: The Alaska Gear Company

The Alaska Gear Company was formerly known as Airframes Alaska, it’s an aviation and outdoor equipment supplier and manufacturer headquartered in Palmer, Alaska. The company is led by majority owner Sean McLaughlin, who bought the original bush airplane parts business when it had just two employees and $100,000 in annual revenue. McLaughlin has since grown it to approximately 100 employees and $20 million in annual sales.

The company can trace its early roots to a licensed maker of Piper PA-18 Super Cub fuselages at Birchwood Airport. Through a series of acquisitions, including Reeve Air Motive (an aircraft parts retailer operating out of Anchorage’s Merrill Field since 1950, Alaska Tent & Tarp, and Northern Sled Works, the company grew well beyond aviation into outdoor recreation and cold-weather gear.

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That diversification ultimately drove the rebrand from Airframes Alaska to Alaska Gear Company in late 2023, as the old name no longer conveyed the full scope of what the company produces and sells.

The Alaska Gear Company now operates out of three locations – a 100,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Palmer, a production facility in Fairbanks, and a retail store with an in-house sewing workshop at Merrill Field in Anchorage.

Its product lines span two major categories. On the aviation side, the company is best known for its hand-built Alaskan Bushwheel tundra tires, FAA-approved titanium landing gear, Super Cub fuselage modifications, and a wide range of bush plane parts. On the outdoor side, it manufactures Arctic Oven hot tents, canvas wall tents, custom freight and pulk sleds, and a modernized version of the iconic military bunny boot designed for extreme cold weather conditions.

More recently in 2024, the Alaska Gear Company was named “Made in Alaska Manufacturer of the Year” by the Alaska Department of Commerce.

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company

The Alaska Canvas Wall Tent is a handmade-in-Alaska canvas tent made from 13oz Sunforger DLX double-filled, preshrunk, marine-grade cotton canvas that’s treated to resist fire, water, and mildew while still remaining breathable.

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It comes in four sizes, including 8×10, 10×12, 12×14, and 14×16 feet, all with 5-foot wall heights, and it’s available either unframed (starting at $1,295) or with a frame (starting at $2,300). The unframed version can be constructed in the field using lengths of wood sourced from the area, reducing the initial pack weight – this is crucial for trips into the wilderness by bush plane where every pound of weight is critical.

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 7

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 4

Image DescriptionIt comes in four sizes, including 8×10, 10×12, 12×14, and 14×16 feet, all with 5-foot wall heights, and it’s available either unframed (starting at $1,295) or with a frame (starting at $2,300). The unframed version can be constructed in the field using lengths of wood sourced from the area, reducing the initial pack weight – this is crucial for trips into the wilderness by bush plane where every pound of weight is critical.

All tents include a 4.5 inch oval stove jack for use with wood or propane stoves, as well as a 56 inch triangular rear window with insect screening, an 18oz vinyl sod cloth around the base to block drafts and moisture, ridgepole openings at both ends, rope-reinforced eaves, brass grommets, overlapping door flaps with ties, a heavy-duty zippered door, and 100 feet of sisal rope for tie-downs.

The tents are now available to buy direct from the Alaska Gear Company here, and at the time of writing they have stock ready to ship out immediately.

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 10
The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 9
The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 8
The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 3

Images courtesy of the Alaska Gear Company



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Lakes are growing in Alaska. That’s not entirely a bad thing

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Lakes are growing in Alaska. That’s not entirely a bad thing

The St. Elias Mountains in southeast Alaska are dotted with over 100 lakes where glaciers crumble into milky, turquoise water. Those lakes are expanding at an ever-quickening pace.

The lakes will quadruple in size over the next century or two, scientists report March 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This growth will transform landscapes, create new salmon habitat and may even change the course of a major river.

“We are seeing the great age of ice retreat” in Alaska, says Daniel McGrath, a glaciologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. “These glaciers are just peeling back from the landscape,” revealing deep grooves they carved in the Earth, where lakes are now forming.

Glacial hydrologist Eran Hood of the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, who was not part of the study, adds that “understanding where these lakes are going to emerge is important” because it “changes the whole nature of the downstream ecosystem.”

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Hugging the coastline along the Alaska-Canada border, the tiny mountainous region that includes the St. Elias Mountains is losing 60 cubic kilometers of ice per year. Because lakes absorb solar heat, the glaciers that shed ice into lakes are shrinking faster than those that terminate on dry land. Across southeast Alaska, these lakes attached to glaciers have expanded by 60 percent since 1986, reaching a combined area of 1,300 square kilometers.

McGrath and his colleagues wondered how far this runaway expansion might go. So, they combined satellite images with estimates of ice thickness — mapping deeply eroded grooves that are still hidden under glaciers.

The results were “eye-opening,” McGrath says. The team identified 4,200 square kilometers of glacier-covered grooves adjacent to existing lakes.

He and his colleagues predict that the lakes will continue to expand — causing rapid ice retreat — until they fill those grooves, reaching a combined size of around 5,500 square kilometers, an area the size of Delaware.

“By the end of this century, all of these lakes will probably be more or less fully developed,” says study coauthor Louis Sass III, a glaciologist with the U.S. Geological Survey at the Alaska Science Center in Anchorage. But those growing lakes are already reshaping entire landscapes in a way that is often overlooked in public discourse around glacier retreat.

Many of Alaska’s glaciers terminate on dry land, and their meltwater often creates barren, rocky floodplains downstream, where the streams alternate between trickles and floods — constantly branching and shifting course as they lay down sediment released by the glacier.

“Those habitats are fairly inhospitable for a lot of fish,” including some salmon, says Jonathan Moore, an aquatic ecologist with Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. The water is too cold, and fish eggs “get swept out or buried by the floods every year.”

But as glaciers retreat into lakes and those lakes expand, their meltwater has time to drop its sediment and warm a few degrees in the lake before spilling into a river. Rivers that carry less sediment are less prone to shifting channels.

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A 2025 study by Moore and remote sensing scientist Diane Whited of the University of Montana found that as glacial lakes expanded over 38 years in southeast Alaska, the downstream river channels stabilized, allowing willows and bushes to spread across floodplains.

“It creates salmon habitat,” Hood says. A 2021 study by Moore and Hood predicted that by 2100, glacial retreat in southeast Alaska will transform 6,000 kilometers of river channels into decent habitat for some local species of salmon. The lakes themselves will create spawning grounds for sockeye salmon — an important commercial species.

But these changes will come with upheaval.

For instance, one major river, the Alsek, will probably shift its course as retreating glaciers cause two lakes to merge, providing an easier path to the ocean.

People in Juneau are feeling another dramatic effect of expanding lakes. At least once per year, a lake dammed by the nearby Mendenhall Glacier spills out in a flash flood that gushes through town, forcing some residents to build protective levees around their homes.

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These ecosystems “are going to be transformed,” Moore says. “But that transformation is going to be pretty violent and pretty dangerous.”



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