Alaska Airlines

[edit] Americola's celebrity biographies are provided by AmericolaWiki, a celebrity wiki. You can help contribute to Americola and edit this article.

Image:Alaska Airlines Logo.svg
Alaska Airlines
IATA AS	ICAO ASA	Callsign Alaska
Founded		1932 (as McGee Airways)
Hubs		Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport
Focus cities		Portland International Airport Los Angeles International Airport Vancouver International Airport
Frequent flyer program		Mileage Plan
Member lounge		Board Room
Fleet size		115
Destinations		59
Parent company		Alaska Air Group
Headquarters		Seattle, Washington
Key people		William "Bill" Ayer (CEO)
Website: http://www.alaskaair.com

Alaska Airlines (IATA: AS, ICAO: ASA, and Callsign: Alaska), (NYSE: ALK), based in Seattle, Washington, USA, has grown from a small regional airline to one carrying more than 12 million customers per year. It has its hub at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, as well as large operations at Los Angeles International Airport, Portland International Airport, Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, and Vancouver International Airport.

Contents 1 History 2 Services 3 Destinations 4 Fleet 5 Employees 6 Livery 7 Incidents and accidents 8 Trivia 9 References 10 External links

History

The airline traces its roots to McGee Airways, which flew its inaugural service between Anchorage and Bristol Bay in 1932 with a single-engined, three-passenger aircraft. Mergers and acquisitions produced changes in the name and saw business expand throughout Alaska and the USA. The name Alaska Airlines was adopted in 1944. Alaska's sister (and wholly owned) airline, Horizon Air, was founded in 1981 to serve communities using routes vacated by larger airlines after the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. In 1985, Alaska Air Group was formed as a holding company for Alaska Airlines. A year later the holding company acquired Horizon Air and Jet America Airlines, which merged into Alaska Airlines in 1987. The airline employs 10,090 staff (at January 2007).

Services

Alaska's route system spans more than 80 cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. From the 1960s to 1998 the airline also served the Russian Far East.

Alaska's reputation for outstanding service has earned it high marks from sources such as Travel + Leisure and Condé Nast Traveler magazines. The airline is considered an early adopter of technology, and was the first to sell tickets on their own website, allow web check-in, and install self check-in kiosks at airports.^{[citation needed]} Alaska Airlines also was the first airline to introduce the digEplayer, a portable digital entertainment system which features on-demand movies, TV shows, cartoons, music and destination info.^{[citation needed]}

Alaska has historically been one of the largest carriers on the US west coast as well as to and within the State of Alaska, with strong presences in Seattle, Portland, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles Metro Area (serving all five LA-area and three Bay Area major airports). With the delivery of 737 Next-Generation aircraft starting in 1999, Alaska began launching more long-haul flights. In 2000, Alaska started service between Anchorage and Chicago. In 2001, the airline was granted slot exemptions by the Department of Transportation to operate a nonstop flight from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) to Seattle, which was halted after only a few days due to 9/11. However, the service resumed the following year, with an additional flight from Washington National to Seattle added in 2004, as well as new non-stop service between Washington National and Los Angeles. Other long-haul flights from Seattle were launched starting in 2002, including flights to Boston, Miami, and Newark.

Alaska Airlines' regional carrier, Horizon Air, is closely integrated into Alaska's operations, with Alaska and Horizon sharing many routes. Alaska and Horizon are owned by the same parent company, Alaska Air Group. The airline's frequent flyer program is called Mileage Plan. Alaska Airlines is not part of any of the three major airline alliances, but Mileage Plan airline partners include prominent members of SkyTeam, such as Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, KLM, and Air France, as well as members of Oneworld, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, and Qantas.

Destinations

Main article: Alaska Airlines destinations

Fleet

The Alaska Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of March 2007):

Aircraft	#	Seats	Notes
Boeing 737-400	37	12/132
Boeing 737-400F	1	All cargo	10 freight pallets
Boeing 737-400C	2	72 coach	Fixed configuration (cargo forward, passengers aft); First two of four aircraft now in service
Boeing 737-700	20	12/112	2 leased aircraft returned Q1 2007
Boeing 737-800	21	16/141	36 orders
Boeing 737-900	12	16/156	Launch customer of aircraft
McDonnell Douglas MD-83	21	12/128	Gradual phaseout, all retired by the end of 2008 and replaced by 737-800. Down from 44 aircraft in 1995.

As of March 2006, the average age of Alaska Airlines' fleet is 10 years.

Alaska operates a fleet of Boeing 737 and MD-80 (under McDonnell Douglas when purchased or leased) jets which is one of the youngest among all major airlines. The airline ultimately plans to replace all MD-80 aircraft with Boeing 737-800s by the end of 2008. Alaska was the launch customer for the 737-900 stretch variant and also uses 737-400, 737-700 and 737-800 throughout its system. Starting in late 2005, Alaska began modifying some of its 737-400's to all-cargo or cargo-passenger configuration to replace its aging fleet of 737-200 Combi aircraft. The first of these aircraft entered service as a freighter in July 2006, while several 737-400 aircraft have been reconfigured to a fixed passenger/cargo configuration. Alaska retired five 737-200 aircraft in 2006. The last 737-200 was retired March 31, 2007.

On 15 June 2005, Alaska ordered 35 Boeing 737-800 aircraft worth $2.3 billion (at list prices) plus options for 15 additional aircraft and purchase rights for another 50, making it one of the largest orders for the 737-800.^[1][2] The first of these aircraft was delivered in January 2006, with deliveries scheduled to continue for the next six years (ref: Air International, July 2005). The retired MD-80's will be stored in Mojave or Victorville, California.

Employees

As of 2007, Alaska Airlines employs more than 10,000 employees. Alaska outsources its baggage handling duties at most airports, except in the State of Alaska. Alaska's heavy aircraft maintenance is done by companies in Everett, Washington, Abbotsford, British Columbia and Oklahoma City, but the airline still performs routine maintenance at its hangar at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Livery

Alaska's first livery was just golden words saying Alaska on its tails. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Alaska added eskimos on all its planes and is still used by the carrier. Three 737-400 aircraft feature special Disney paint schemes. Another 737-400 is painted to look like a giant salmon (known in aviation circles as the "Salmon-Thirty-Salmon"), while one 737-400 and one 737-800 feature the "reverse scheme" livery with alaskaair.com painted on the sides. The colors of Alaska Airlines starting in the 1980s were blue and green. At the start of the 1990s Alaska's colors became ink blue and teal. In November 2006 Alaska added another 737 to its fleet in the Disney Genie scheme. Alaska also used to have Eskimos that said things like "Thank you for flying Alaska" and some of them even had sunglasses. The fleet also has another special 737 with the carrier's first colors to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the start of Alaska Airlines.

Incidents and accidents

On September 4, 1971, Alaska Airlines Flight 1866, a Boeing 727-193 crashed into a mountain while on approach to Juneau, Alaska, after receiving misleading navigational information. All seven crew members and 104 passengers were killed.

On January 31, 2000, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 plunged into the Pacific Ocean near Point Mugu, California shortly before attempting an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport en route from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco and Seattle, killing all 88 people on board. In its final report, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the cause of the accident to be failure of the horizontal stabilizer trim system jackscrew acme nut threads due to insufficient lubrication of the jackscrew assembly by Alaska Airlines. NTSB further determined that the insufficient lubrication resulted from Alaska's extended lubrication and inspection intervals and from the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) approval of those intervals. NTSB also found that the lack of a fail-safe mechanism for the failure of the acme nut threads on the MD-80 design contributed to the accident. This incident, along with the earlier ValuJet crash, led to closer FAA oversight of airline maintenance operations.

December 26, 2005: Flight 536, which was headed from Seattle, Washington to Burbank, California was forced to make an emergency landing. The cause was a foot-long hole in the fuselage, which caused the plane to lose cabin pressure. According to NTSB spokesman Jim Struhsaker, a baggage claim handler has admitted failing to immediately report bumping the plane at the gate with a baggage cart or baggage-belt machine. The Associated Press quotes Stuhsaker saying "The bump created a crease in the plane's aluminum skin, which opened up into a 12- by 6-inch gash as the plane came under increased pressure differential at 26,000 feet.

Trivia

• Alaska Airlines, since the 1970s, has distributed prayer cards with Bible verses on them to passengers at mealtimes. This has resulted in both positive (from the airline's mostly American clientele) and negative (from non-theist groups within the US and on the Web) feedback.
• When Alaska Airlines started painting eskimos on their planes, the original eskimo used to have shoulders. Then in the 1980s to today, Alaska Airlines now only shows the heads of the eskimos.

References

Wikipedia information about Alaska Airlines This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Alaska Airlines". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.