Temsco Helicopters Inc — Attraction in Alaska

I’m sure the aircraft and pilots and the excursions here are just fine. This post is meant to serve as a cautionary advisement that even if your group will fill up the helicopter, you can easily get gouged. Not to mention belittled.

For some context, the Temsco (and many other operators’ policies) state that if a person’s weight with all gear going up exceeds 250 pounds, you “may” be charged an additional amount (currently $150) which is related to two things as best we can research. One, fuel. Two, they need to know weight so aircraft limits are not exceeded and passengers can be seated to balance load for the pilot. So this all makes sense.

Here is where the “may be charged” comes in. Yesterday, our group of five completely filled out A-star helo and although three of us with all gear were then over between seven to twelve pounds, one of us was under by 22 pounds and one of us was under by 110 pounds. So, there was a reasonable expectation that we would be fine and we were!

Move forward by one day and Temsco decides they are going to surprise us at the heliport by trying to charge us $450, or three fuel surcharges. Not only would they not negotiate to a single charge which would have been a fair compromise; when we explained that it wasn’t an issue yesterday, and we were collectively way under the group limit - he wouldn’t have any of it. The clerk literally said, “we are charging the bigger people for the comfort of the other passengers.” We again clearly pointed out politely that we are all traveling together and all comfortably went up in the same aircraft yesterday to which he replied that it didn’t matter because it was policy. When I pointed out that we were still way under the group limit and began to talk about load balancing, the clerk said, “oh, so you’re a helicopter expert after just one trip and i have been doing this nine years.” When he made this statement it was not in jest and it was loud, embarrassing and very public. I asked for our tickets back and i we were told there was nothing we could do with a smirk. Either pay pay all the extra fees or we would lose all of the $3,500 we paid for a year ago.

Well, we will see.But one thing is for certain - after this kind of shock treatment, our confidence to fly anywhere with Temsco is pretty well shattered. Was this desperation on their part for an additional cash grab?Toxic egotism? In any event, be careful. You can arrange your bucket list trip and excursion and get gouged because reasons and be publicly belittled in the process.

The craziest thing is that not only do they feel entitled to keep money not earned and after being super caustic- they are just immediately turning around and selling our seats to others. I mean… WOW!

Now, as to expertise from a non-pilot passenger to a non-pilot clerk, sure I could have explained I was an aviation Marine for many years but Temsco staff had already made their position abundantly clear by effectively saying how stupid we were and rubbing our noses in it.

I will include a good pic from a company you should be able to trust up here...

This is the worst & nightmare experience & reuined my vacation. I booked a dog sled excursion with them 7 months ago as my kid wished for dog sled on glacier for his 10th borthday and is the whole reason why we planned for Alaska cruise trip. When we got there on the day of excursion, due to land slide in Skagway, Royal carribbean port has to run shuttles to get the people out of the ship to pier and the whole process was taking time. I called TEMSCO to notify them the situation, the front desk lady said, it is fine, please get here and we will take it from there. With that assurance, I thought it would be fine and they can accommodate if it is a few mins late. We tried our best to get there on time but we were late by 20mins. Upon arriving they simply said, you are late, we neither can refund you nor can get you your excursion. After a long debate they had given us a different excursion which doesnt have dog sled after 2 and half hours which we were not interested bit had to go because they dont refund. I begged the front desk people & the management there that it was kid’s birthday wish atleast let him go on dog sled, they didnt care. With utter disappointment, we finished the excursion they offered and left the place. Front desk shouldnt have assured me that we would be fine if we be late when I reached out with a concern, if they had told me that I would loose my excursion altogether, I would have done whatever it may take to get there on time. For them I am just another tourist, they didnt understand our emotion behind this experience, after all of the effort to get to Alaska, I couldnt give my kid on his birthday of what he wished. On the very same day, I tried to book the same excursion in Junuae but since it is last min I couldnt find spots. I cant get to Alaska every day and cant have a second chance to do the dog sled on glacier that ny kid wished for. We left with heavy heart and couldnt enjoy our rest of the trip. I cant forgive these people for ruining a lifetime experience for us by false assurance. I wouldnt recommend them at all but there are no other alternatives at this time for...

First, I'd like to point out that this is literally the first negative review I've ever written. But wish others would have shared these thoughts so maybe I would have spent my $700 elsewhere.

Overall, I was Incredibly disappointed in the experience. I was very excited for my first helicopter experience and to see some incredible views of a glacier. Unfortunately, the entire experience felt like a rush to get back to the next group so they could churn out as many tours as possible in one day. We flew out to the very beginning of the glacier, and landed (which was also the absolute dirtiest and ugliest section of the glacier) then spent about 30 minutes walking about 100 yrds from the helicopter. Very little actual exploration. I asked the pilot how far up the glacier goes, and he said about 13 to 15 miles, and then asked if we were going to go up further to see more of the glacier and it was a simple “no”. Personally, if I’m taking a helicopter ride to see a glacier, I want to see the glacier. You know, images like they show on the videos and photos on your website. That was not at all our experience. We saw far better views of glaciers from our cruise ship. The helicopter really never got close to any nature as the thier photos and videos imply, we honestly had just as good of a view from the shoreline. Overall, very disappointing experience and felt like it was the absolute minimum they could do to technically be a helicopter ride...