Oh man, I am betting this one will (not) win. You have to be able to do better?
Do you want to create your own livery and see it on a Boeing 737? Well, Alaska Airlines and the Portland Timbers might let you live that dream. They are holding a contest and letting fans create their own livery. If it is chosen, they will paint an aircraft in your design.
Well, I guess you also win a pair of first class tickets to anywhere Alaska Airlines flies, free Timber tickets and an autographed jersey. That is pretty neat, but not nearly as neat as having a Boeing 737 flying around with your livery.
Do you have what it takes to make up your own livery? Obviously I do and I hope mine will win (okay, I am not submitting this). Better hurry, you only have until February 15, 2011. You can learn more and get a blank version of the Boeing 737 on the Timber’s website. Good luck!
This will become the new livery of Horizon Air...er I mean Alaska Airlines operated by Horizon Air. Click for larger.
The fine media folks over at Alaska Airlines had quite the day yesterday. They were very busy announcing all sorts of exciting things. I am sure some of this stuff you have already heard, but maybe some you haven’t. Here are some of the announcements:
HORIZON LOSES OWN BRAND, GAINS ALASKA’S:
As an Alaska Airlines/Horizon fan and one that loves liveries, this is huge news. On January 1, 2011, Horizon Air stopped flying under its own brand and for most people, this was not an obvious change. Instead of flying their own routes and doing their own marketing of their routes, they started flying 100% via capacity purchase agreement under Alaska Airlines. At the time, questions started to surface on what Horizon’s future would be. Horizon could have been sold off, started to fly for other carriers or be absorbed completely under the Alaska brand. Yesterday, Alaska announced they will be re-branding Horizon with the Alaska brand. This means the sun on the tail will be replaced with the familiar Eskimo. Over time, all of Horizon’s fleet will be repainted in Alaska colors with some Horizon lettering.
If you love those Horizon Q400’s in university livery (go Dawgs!), do not worry, Horizon stated via their Twitter account, they are here to stay. Just because the outer brand will be changing, doesn’t mean the Horizon brand of service will be changing. You will still get the Ala Cart baggage service, flight crew uniforms and of course that free beer and wine you can get with every flight.
I have always enjoyed the Horizon Air livery on the Q400’s, but I have to say, Alaska’s livery on the aircraft looks slick. Normally a change like this will look odd and takes some time to get used to (ie United’s new livery), but this just seems natural. The “Horizon” after the Alaska name looks odd, but my guess is the “Horizon” will be removed as passengers get used to the new, combined brand.
This makes sense. A lot of sense. Horizon and Alaska have been operating under the Alaska Air Group since Horizon was purchased in 1986, but they have remained pretty separate. There has been a lot of overlap between the companies, where they did things separately. Not only will this move save money in advertising one brand, instead of two, but it also allows them to merge offices and jobs. This can secure both the futures of Alaska and Horizon Air and should make it easier for the airline to swap out aircraft between the mainline Boeing 737’s and Horion’s Q400’s when needed and possible.
RECORD PROFIT:
This is a booming time for the airline business. Many of the airlines are seeing profits they haven’t seen in years — or ever. Alaska is one of those that is very much enjoying the boom. They reported their 4th quarter 2010 net income as $47.4 million. That is not bad, especially seeing how they only made $4.4 million during the fourth quarter 2009. The entire Alaska Air Group has $1.2 billion in unrestricted cash and marketable securities at December 31, 2010. Adjusted debt-to-total capital ratio of 67% — lowest leverage since 1999.
Anytime airlines make a profit, some people seem to want to punish them. Asking for lower fares and removal of fees. Please. They are a business and need to save up money and reinvest money for future growth. I think we should all be happy for the airlines and especially Alaska for making such impressive profits.
ADDITIONAL BOEING 737 ORDERS:
Alaska announced they have ordered an additional 13 Boeing 737-900ER’s, which will will have the new Sky Interior. Alaska hopes to start taking delivery in 2012 and to be completed by 2014. Alaska posted a photo of the proposed new Sky Interior on their new 737’s via Twitter yesterday, which is small, but at least gives you an idea of what it will look like. Boeing released a computer generated photo of what the Alaska Air Boeing 737-900ER will look like (spoiler: no big surprises, but still cool photo). Dan Webb via his blog, Things in the Sky, took a closer look at what this order means for Alaska so no point in repeating his findings.
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS OF INTEREST:
* Alaska Airlines holds the No. 1 spot in U.S. Department of Transportation on-time performance among the 10 largest U.S. airlines for the last twelve months.
* Alaska Airlines reaches a tentative agreement with its IAM-represented employees ’“ including customer service agents, reservations agents, and certain clerical staff.
* Horizon Air’s mechanics and pilots ratify long-term labor contracts.
* Alaska will be retiring all the CRJ-700’s in the Horizon fleet by the end of 2011. Although I love the Q400’s, it would have been nice to see a CRJ in Alaska livery — oh well.
Although some will be sad to see the Horizon brand will vanish over the horizon (sorry, couldn’t help myself), it does mean that the Horizon you have gotten to know and love will be going anywhere. All these changes is great news for Alaska and in turn for many of those that fly in and out of Seattle and the western United States. Alaska has done an amazing job of growing in to new markets an providing a high level of service for their customers. I see that these changes will only help Alaska continue to succeed and grow.
The new look: Alaska Airlines Arena at the University of Washington. Click for larger.
I know, this might not mean much to most of you, but this is my hometown airline getting a building with their name on it at my alma mater, so I wanted to share. The on-campus basketball arena will now be called “Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion” at the University of Washington Seattle campus (UW now has three campuses: Seattle, Tacoma and Bothell but they are all the Huskies). This is a five year agreement between the airline and the university. Alaska will be paying $525,000.00 per year on top of the $175,000.00 already paid in athletics’ sponsorship.
“We are thrilled to expand our long-standing relationship with the University of Washington and that the Alaska Airlines name will be associated with the proud history of Hec Edmundson Pavilion,” said Alaska Airlines President Brad Tilden. “Husky basketball is a time-honored tradition enjoyed by many in our community, including our customers and our employees.”
Alaska has been doing a great job partnering with a lot of northwest organizations and companies to really show they are Seattle’s hometown airline and this just furthers that.
Go Alaska and Go Dawgs!
Image of Alaska Airlines image on the court
Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-800 about to leave Bellingham for warm Honolulu.
Bellingham is located about an hour and a half north of Seattle and about fourteen miles south of the Canadian border. Over the past few years Belingham International Airport (BLI) has been growing tremendously. Friday was an exciting day for the airport and Alaska Airlines. Even though Alaska and their sister carrier Horizon Air have been flying out of Bellingham to Las Vegas and Seattle for quite sometime now, Alaska has now started non-stop service to Honolulu (HNL). They will fly to Honolulu and back once per day using a Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Alaska started their first flight to Hawaii in 2007 and now has eighth west coast cities connecting to the islands of Hawaii.
“Alaska Airlines is proud to call the Pacific Northwest home. So we’re delighted to offer Bellingham its first-ever nonstop scheduled service to Hawaii,” said Joe Sprague, Alaska Airlines’ vice president of marketing. “Our new Honolulu flights will allow travelers from north of Seattle and the Lower Mainland to take advantage of our low fares, award-winning service and Mileage Plan earning opportunities via an easy-to-access, nearby airport.”
Flying to the state of Alaska has become huge for the airline. I was able to talk to Bob Derse, Regional Manager of Sales and Community Marketing in the Northwest and he explained when he started with Alaska about 30 years ago, 80% of seat miles were flown to and from the state of Alaska. Today there are only about 16% of the seat miles flown to Alaska and 15% being flown to Hawaii. Derse, the other local Alaska personnel and the airport’s personal were all very excited for this flight. Of course all of their excitement was nothing for the full plane load of passengers who were waiting to head to Hawaii. Well, actually it wasn’t a full plane. Due to weight and range issues, the flight will be flown with 10 empty seats. That is a win for passengers, since this means there will be quite a few empty middle seats, making the flight more comfortable.
This guy is loving the idea he is heading to Hawaii!
I asked Christina Aldanese of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau if Hawaiians thought it odd to fly on planes to the west coast of the United States on an airplane that has “Alaska” on the side. She explained that Hawaii and Alaska states have a sort of sisterhood with both not being a part of the continental United States and the last two to join the union. Many folks going to and coming from the islands truly appreciate the additional flights that Alaska has provided.
Since this was such a big (and fun) deal, Alaska wasn’t going to let this happen with out some special treats. Passengers were greeted by employees in Hawaiian garb and were given a special party bag, food and drink. After going through security, there were Hawaiian decorations and more food and drink at the gate. Before boarding, there was an Hawaiian blessing done with a gentlemen in Hawaiian garb chanting and splashing water from a bowl with what looked like braided seaweed. He started from the gate and went through the plane and back inside. It was quite entertaining to see. While he was doing this there was an Allegiant flight that was de-boarding and I don’t think I have seen so many looks of curiosity from passengers.
There were plenty of smiles coming from people as their boarded the aircraft, knowing in a few hours they would be in Hawaii. Although Alaska is the first airline to fly from Bellingham to Hawaii, they most likely will not be the last. Allegiant has announced they plan to commence flights out of Bellingham, but their ETOPS certification of their new Boeing 757’s have been delayed, causing the flights to be pushed to at least 2012. This will give Alaska time to market their new route and start to build a loyalty for passengers flying from northern Washington and southern British Columbia to Honolulu.
To help you celebrate, Alaska is offering special discounted tickets for quite sometime. You can fly to HNL from BLI for just $149 each way — hmm, maybe I can take advantage of that.
MORE GOODIES:
* My photos of the Alaska Airlines event
* Video from KOMO4 News
Example of an Alaska Airlines boarding pass on a mobile phone. Photo from AlaskaAir
I love technology and am excited when new gadgets come out that help passengers. When the e-podiums and checking in online were an option, I was one of the first to use them. However, there is one piece of technology I haven’t been so quick to start using: electronic boarding passes. Although the technology has been around for a while, I have been avoiding using it. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the technology, I didn’t trust the training of the people who had to scan it.
On a recent Alaska Airlines flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Seattle (SEA) I decided to give it a shot. Did it work? Well I made it on the plane, but I am going to go with “no.” Getting the mobile boarding pass was pretty easy using Alaska’s iPhone app. Checked in and had my boarding bar code on my phone to use with security and the gate agent.
Since security was up an escalator in my terminal at LAX a TSA employee was there to check my boarding pass at the bottom of the escalator and another at the top before actually being screened. The first TSA guy just kind of looked at my phone, and said go ahead. He looked confused, but maybe because he was only looking at the bar code. He didn’t look at my name or flight information since you have to scroll down on my phone to see that.
I got to the second TSA person and you could tell she wasn’t happy I was holding my phone. With a big sigh she picked up the scanner, turned it on and “beep” scanned my phone. This process took about three times longer than if she just looked at my paper ticket, stamped it and let me proceed. However faking a paper boarding pass is quite easy — not as easy as faking a bar code.
Next was the tricky part. It was boarding time and the gate agent needed to scan my electronic boarding pass. I held out my phone and without hesitation she told me that my phone wouldn’t scan and I needed to go get a boarding pass. Now I had a dilemma. I could give up, keep the line moving and get a paper boarding pass at the gate or do my best to get on board with my phone’s while annoying the passengers in line behind me. Since I knew I would be writing up a blog on this, I wanted to get on the plane with my phone (sorry to the people behind me, but we still left 15min early).
At first I asked if I could try to get it to scan. Being a bit nervous for holding up the line, I wasn’t able to get it to scan. Then I asked her if she could just read my boarding pass and seat number off my phone, like she would if a paper boarding pass wouldn’t scan. She agreed and I was on my way on the plane feeling a bit embarrassed.
I spoke with Alaska Airlines about my experience and Jeff Butler, Alaska’s vice president of customer service-airports explained to me, “Our experience rolling out the e-boarding pass hasn’t been unlike other carriers using the same technology – we’ve had mixed success but we’ve learned a lot. About 1,500 people use the e-boarding pass each month and we’ve heard positive feedback and also see areas for improvement.” Talking about my issue I ran into, Butler told me, “The particular issue you had scanning the boarding pass should be resolved by the end of the year. In the coming year, we will be upgrading our gate scanners which will improve the scanning of the boarding pass and we are already looking at ways to improve the user functionality.”
I have been hearing similar stories from other travelers, but it is nice to see that Alaska knows there are some issues and are working to resolve them. Thing is, I have no doubt e-boarding passes will be the future. Although I didn’t have the best experience, I will keep trying and I suggest you do as well. The more we do it, the more airlines will learn from issues. Just remember to have a back up boarding pass in your pocket, at least for the time being.
