Alaska Marine Highway Disability Pass

The Alaska Marine Highway System gives a disability discount pass that reduces the passenger fare by fifty percent for a disabled veteran with a service-connected disability. It applies between Alaska ports, on all vessels, year round. In a state where the ferry is the road for much of the southeast and southwest coast, this is transport rather than recreation. For a veteran in Ketchikan, Kodiak, Cordova or an unroaded community, the Marine Highway is how medical appointments, family and supplies are reached, and half the passenger fare on a route that can run several hundred dollars is a substantial recurring benefit. The pass covers the passenger fare and one attendant where a physician certifies that the veteran requires one. That is the provision that makes it usable for a veteran who cannot travel alone, and it is easy to miss because it depends on a physician's certification rather than on the rating. What is excluded is where the cost actually concentrates on a long sailing. Vehicles are not discounted. Cabins are not discounted. Meals are not discounted. A veteran taking a truck from Bellingham to Haines is paying full price for the largest line on the ticket, and the discount applies to the passenger portion only. The pass is applied for through the Marine Highway disability pass desk in Juneau, by email, fax or mail, rather than at the terminal. It should be obtained before travel, because the discount is not applied retroactively to a ticket already bought. Note that the discount is a disability pass rather than a veterans pass. The statutory hook is the service-connected disability, and the system operates the same pass for non-veterans with qualifying disabilities. No particular percentage appears in the published eligibility, which makes this one of the few Alaska benefits in this file that a veteran with a low rating can reach. Alaska Railroad separately offers a twenty percent discount to veterans, retired and active duty service members and their dependents, on production of official identification. That is a company policy rather than a statute and it can change.