flyctl scale does not accept token (other commands do)

why does

flyctl scale count 1 --app owlcms-dev -t SLBu4mAg2VCcIao-bQmjz45SUhGXaPNaxOlUtZ6XXXX

fail with “no access token available”. Works fine with other commands (flyctl apps list)
The API token was just generated on the account page (I neutered the end). Same behaviour if I recover the token using the cli_sessions api.