Alaska Airlines New Salmon-Thirty-Salmon, which will be put in service in the fall 2012. Image from Alaska. CLICK FOR LARGER.
Alaska Airlines and the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute have announced plans to make the world’s longest, flying King Salmon on a Boeing 737-800.
In 2005, the airline unveiled the first Salmon-Thirty-Salmon on a Boeing 737-400. That livery was retired and painted over last year. Those who were fans of the fish-themed livery were disappointed and I know I have been hoping for a second version since.
The ’œSalmon-Thirty-Salmon II’ will be nine feet longer and will feature salmon colored titles on the fuselage. Also, check out those scales on the winglets — not too shabby. Alaska plans to unveil the new salmon livery sometime this fall.
The first Salmon-Thirty-Salmon livery on a Boeing 737-400. Photo by Andrew Cohen.
’œThis airplane celebrates Alaska Airlines’ unique relationship with the people and communities of Alaska and underscores our air transport commitment to the state’s seafood industry,’ said Marilyn Romano, Alaska Airlines’ regional vice president of the state of Alaska. ’œBecause the new design will be featured on a larger 737-800, this 91,000-pound king will boldly promote the world’s finest seafood from the Hawaiian Islands to Boston and beyond.’
Speaking of Salmon, Alaska Airlines will be celebrating the first Copper River Salmon delivery with an early morning cook off this Friday. Once again, I will be getting up early to welcome the salmon and enjoy what the cooks are able to create.
Alaska Airlines new New Recaro seats for economy class that will make their appearance on the airline's new Boeing 737-900ERs. Image from Alaska.
Alaska Airlines has announced that they will be installing new seats from Recaro Aircraft Seating on their 22, soon-to-be delivered, Boeing 737-900ERs.
The seats will offer a six-way adjustable headrest, three inches of recline and an additional inch of legroom.
The additional leg room will not affect the airline’s seat pitch of 31-32″, but it will offer more room for your legs. “The extra inch we refer to is gained by Recaro’s clever design that effectively adds one more inch of room to your living space, without us moving the seats further apart,” Alaska spokes person confirmed to AirlineReporter.com. “Specific to pitch, our pitch will stay consistent with our current standard 31-32 inches.”
Alaska Airlines new New Recaro seats for First Class that will make their appearance on the airline's new Boeing 737-900ERs. Image from Alaska.
Alaska will also get new Recaro seats for the first class cabin that will offer five inches of recline, an articulating seat bottom and a six-way adjustable headrest.
The seat, “design includes a comfortable yet slimmer seatback and bottom and a literature pocket located above the tray table,” said Joe Sprague, Alaska Airlines’ vice president of marketing. “The new seats add to a very special onboard experience that all of our customers flying Alaska’s new 737-900ERs will enjoy, including Boeing’s Sky Interiorwith its improved lighting and sculpted overhead bins that create a more spacious cabinonboard Wi-Fi, Starbucks coffee, premium Washington wines and delicious meals for purchase, as well as our renowned personal service.”
The seats are also lighter and are expected to save about 8,000 gallons of fuel annually per aircraft.
Emirates and Alaska Airlines are now working together with a shared mileage plan.
During an Emirates press conference today held in Seattle, WA, Alaska Airlines announced a mileage partnership with the Dubai based airline. Passengers will be able to earn and redeem miles on either airline, plus miles accumulated while flying on Emirates will count towards Alaska MVP elite level program. From March 1, 2012 to May 31st Alaska will offer double miles on any Emirates flight.
“As part of our commitment to Seattle, we are launching our service by partnering with Seattle’s hometown airline to offer customers the convenience of a frequent flier partnership as well as one-stop check-in and through checked baggage,” said Nigel Page, Emirates Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations for the Americas.
As reported previously, Emirates will start non-stop service from Seattle (SEA) to Dubai (DXB) starting on March 1, 2012. The new flight will help connect the northwest to the Middle East, Africa and India. Emirates new flight (#’s EK229 and EK230) will depart daily from Seattle and Dubai and take 14.5 to 15hrs to complete. Emirates Boeing 777-300ER will we set up in a three class layout and the price for a first class suite will cost $15,279.00, while business will cost $9479.00 and economy will be around $1448.00. With Seattle having so many large companies and a decent demand for people to visit their families in the middle east and India, the airline expects their new route to do quite well.
When asked if Emirates might be interested in upgrading their 777 service to Seattle to an Airbus A380 Nigel stated, “As we build the business up we will certainty look at that.” However, he stated that they have not been in talks with the Port of Seattle about bringing the A380 to SEA. Previously, Perry Cooper with the Port of Seattle communications told AirlineReporter.com that, “We can handle the A380 in emergencies, however we do not have facilities for regular use, such as the multiple gate loading ramps, for the aircraft. At this time, if an A380 were to arrive and need to access a gate, safety guidelines would require all traffic to stop until the aircraft stopped at its gate, due to the width of taxiways and safety zones next to the runways.’
Currently, the Airbus A380 is not able to make it from Dubai to Seattle non-stop and Emirates stated that they are working with Airbus to increase the range to handle cities, like Los Angeles non-stop.
Emirates will also be starting service to Dallas starting February 2nd and has voiced interest in expanding to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. The fact the airline has so many aircraft currently on order (70 Airbus A350s, 70 Airbus A380s and 87 Boeing 777s), my guess is all these cities will be seeing Emirates service soon.
Images:
Emirates by Robin Bilgil
Alaska by Leezpics
Today, Alaska Airlines will start their first of 75 flights using abiofuel mixture and they want you to be a part of it. Following along as one flight leaves Seattle for Washington, DC (a Boeing 737) and another leaves for Portland (a Bombardier Q400) using the new fuel.
Who:
* Aviation sustainability experts from Alaska Airlines and Boeing Commercial Airplanes
* And you!
When:
* Today, November 9th from 2:45 pm ’“ 3:45 pm (PST).
Where:
* Sign up online and join our Flying Green Chat, or follow along using hashtag #FlyGreen on Twitter.
Before and after photo. On the left is used cooking oil and on the right is the processed biofuel. Check out the Alaska 737's in the background. Photo from Boeing.
During the flights, Alaska Airlines wants you to share your thoughts on the future of aviation, sustainability and environmental awareness. On the flight to Washington, DC will be Alaska’s top sustainability expect along with other folks in the field. Shorly after take off, you will be able to ask questions about aviation sustainability.
Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 with Mount Rainier in the background. Photo by Brandon Farris.
Alaska Airlines announced yesterday that they will operate 75 regularly schedule flights, using renewable bio-fuels starting tomorrow, November 9th. The maiden flight will leave from Seattle (SEA) to Washington, DC (DCA) and also Portland (PDX). The airline will fuel the aircraft using a 20% blend of biofuel made from used cooking oil.
Alaska is hoping that these flights will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 10%, which is equal to removing 26 cars from the road for a year. The impact of these few flights might seem minor, but if Alaska were to use the 20% biofuel mixture on all their flights, it would be the equivalent of removing 64,000 cars off of the road.
’œThis is a historic week for U.S. aviation.’ Alaska Air Group Chairman and CEO Bill Ayer stated. ’œCommercial airplanes are equipped and ready for biofuels. They will enable us to fly cleaner, foster job growth in a new industry, and can insulate airlines from the volatile price swings of conventional fuel to help make air travel more economical. To the biofuels industry, we say: If you build it, we will buy it.’
The fuel mixture is being supplied by SkyNRG and made by Dynamic Fuels (who is in a partnership with Tyson Foods). These flights by Alaska are part of the Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest (SAFN) initiative, which was launched in July 2010 by Alaska Airlines, Boeing, Portland International Airport, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Spokane International Airport and Washington State University to promote aviation biofuel development.
United Airlines's first commercial advanced biofuel flight using a Boeing 737-800 (N76516) takes off from Houston yesterday. Photo by United.
Although there is a lot of excitement in the northwest for Alaska’s first flight on Wednesday, United Airlines operated a scheduled flight using biofuels yesterday, the 7th of November. Flight 1403, a Boeing 737-800, left from Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Aiport (IAH) at about 10:30am local time for Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD).
’œUnited is taking a significant step forward to advance the use of environmentally responsible and cost-efficient alternative fuels,’ said Pete McDonald, United’s executive vice president and chief operations officer. ’œSustainable biofuels, produced on a large scale at an economically viable price, can one day play a meaningful role in powering everyone’s trip on an airline.’
United also announced that they have signed a letter of intent to negotiate the purchase of 20 million gallons of biofuel per year, starting as early as 2014
United beat Alaska for a revenue biofuel flight by two days, but it is not clear when or if United will continue the biofuel flights. An email to United to get clarification on their future biofuel flights has not been returned by the time of posting this story.
