Apolo Ohno taking a photo of his image on an Alaska Airline's Boeing 737...how surreal. Photo by me.
Back in March I blogged how you could win a trip to Hawaii for five days with Apolo Ohno on Alaska Airlines. Well, Alaska received almost 30,000 entries (one was mine) and four lucky people were selected (none of those were me, but I did get to be there…bonus). I always wonder, “does anyone ever win these things?” and sure enough they do.
Yesterday morning I got up at about 3:45am to head down to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to meet the lucky winners and of course Apolo Ohno. You know Mr. Ohno right? He is the most decorated American Winter Olympic athlete of all time and he is also a cool dude. For some, being that talented has a way of going to someone’s head, but not for Ohno. He was more than happy to take photos with fans.
I spoke with one of the winners and his guest; Kevin LaChapelle and his new fianc Whittnee Chen. Even though they have known each other for years, Kevin just proposed and Whittnee said yes. What better way to celebrate than a free trip to Hawaii, with Apolo?
Apolo after he arrived in Maui. Photo by Alaska Airlines
Kevin told me he almost missed winning this trip. He saw the email and sent it to his spam folder. He then remembered signing up for the contest and took a second look. He had won! Kevin said if Whittnee didn’t say yes to his proposal, he had many friends saying they would take her slot to Hawaii.
I was also able to interview Apolo on video about his thoughts on having his image on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737. Well, long story short, I lost the video. Lame. It was really good too. Anyhow he told me it was very surreal. He explained how much he loves Alaska Airlines and is so happy they sponsored him. The silver lining of all this, I was Tweeting my frustrations on losing the video and Apolo responded over Twitter he would like to re-do it. Now, that is awesome!
Their special flight took off from Seattle at about 8:30am yesterday and arrived in Maui in the afternoon. When they arrived, they were greeted by the Lt Governor of Hawaii, James R. “Duke” Aiona Jr, the Maui Mayor Charmain Tavares and the Maui Surf Groms.
The groms are a group of young surfers who are looking to make surfing an official Olympic sport. The group helps disadvantage kids fly around the Hawaiian islands to compete and they were all very excited to meet Ohno.
It was fun to watch them all leave, but I wish I was going with them. Oh well, at least I can blog about it.
Pretty clever WiFi logo with the dots for the i's being the engines! Logo from Alaska Airlines.
Blogging about airlines adding WiFi to their fleet will never get old for me.
If you remember Alaska caused a bit of a stir after announcing they would be going with Gogo Inglight Internet service instead of Row44, which they were testing. One of the benefits of Gogo is it can be quickly installed onto an aircraft. Alaska already has six planes internet enabled and hopes to have all Boeing 737-800’s and 900’s equipped with WiFi by the end of the Summer. Their entire fleet should be setup by the end of the year. Like other airlines, Alaska will have a WiFi logo by the main cabin door and information in the seat back pocket next to you.
In a partnership with Alaska Airline’s Visa credit card, they are offering the WiFi for free until July 31, 2010. After July 31st northbound flights from Portland and Seattle to Alaska will remain free, until GoGo Inflight is able to improve on cell reception in Alaska. After the free period, prices on other flights will range from $5 to $13 depending on the time and device you want to use.
Alaska Airline's Captain bringing out the first Copper River Salmon that is 46lbs.
Today I got up quite early for a special event. Salmon. Lots and lots of salmon.
After I woke up I headed over to Alaska Airline’s cargo facility by Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for a special delivery: 22,000 pounds of Copper River Salmon! If you don’t know about Copper River Salmon, you have been missing out. It is like the king of salmon.
22,000lbs might sound like a lot, but Alaska flew about 700,000lbs of Copper River Salmon last year and more than 25 million pounds of seafood last year. Yikes! Maybe it should be called sea-air food (ok I know bad joke).
That's me (in the awesome vest) and Alaska Airlines President Brad Tilden (he's one cool guy!) in front of Salmon-3-Salmon
“Alaska Airlines flies more Copper River salmon throughout the season than any other airline,” said Joe Sprague, Alaska’s vice president of marketing. “With enhanced food quality procedures and additional flights to support the Alaska seafood industry, we are going the extra mile to deliver fresh seafood throughout the country.”
Each year Alaska Airlines flies the season’s first catch of the fish from Cordova, AK to Seattle and beyond. Not only did I get to watch Alaska’s Boeing 737-400 Cargo land, but Alaska also had their Salmon-3-Salmon present to celebrate.
A 46lb salmon was the first one to de-plane and was filleted. Three chefs competed to make the best meal and a panel of judges, including Jay Buhner, Seattle Mariners Hall of Famer; Mike Fourtner, deckhand on the F/V Time Bandit, as featured on Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch;” Paul Wulff, Washington State University football coach (go University of Washington Huskies — my alum); and Alaska Airlines President Brad Tilden.
That is one BIG fish!
Follow @AlaskaAir on Twitter, to see the winning Copper River salmon recipe. The three recipes prepared for the Copper Chef Cook-off are available to download at http://bit.ly/CRSalmon. Fish lovers are encouraged to share their own favorite salmon recipes on Twitter, using the hashtag #CRsalmon. (if none of that Twitter talk makes sense to you, don’t worry, just pretend I just wrote something in Greek).
This means you will start to be able to find the Copper River Salmon at your local grocery store or seafood restaurant. You can rest assured that the salmon flying on Alaska will be fresh, since each employee is trained on how to handle perishable cargo. The salmon is kept cool and they make sure the journey is quick.
Copper River salmon might cost a bit more and is it worth it? HECK YES!
Check out all 71 photos of this morning’s event. A special thanks for Alaska Airlines for putting on this awesome event and of course the invite!
When I was a young kid I remember seeing this commercial on TV. With all the talk about all these extra fees and maybe having to pay for bathrooms, I couldn’t help but think of this classic commercial. Thanks to YouTube, I was able to track it down and wanted to share. Little did the ad agency know how real this might become.
This also shows that is Ryanair will really do this (I don’t think they will), they need to make sure the doors take credit cards!
Photo taken when I put Alaska's guarantee to the test!
Airline fees are not very unique anymore. It takes a bit more than a fee change or new fee to motivate me enough to write a blog on it (like charging for carry-ons). Why does Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air get a blog on fees?
Not because they are raising some fees (1st checked bag from $15 to $20) or that they are lowering others (2nd checked back from $25 to $20, 3rd from $50 to $20), but because they are making their from plane-to-you bag guarantee even better.
Previously if you checked a bag with Alaska or Horizon, they guaranteed your bag would reach the baggage carousel 25 minutes or less from the time your airplane made it to the jetway. Now that they are raising the prices for some passengers, they are improving the guarantee to only 20 minutes.
If your bag doesn’t make it in 20minutes, you can either get $20 off your next flight or 2000 miles (I vote take the miles). A while back I put their guarantee to the test on a flight from Seattle to Phoenix and my bag made it in just over 15 minutes.
Yea, fees are annoying, but they aren’t going away. At least one airline gives you something extra with your baggage fees!
