Hockey is back in Seattle! And it’s time to rally & look fly doing it! All season long, if you’re flying out of Seattle, Everett or Palm Springs and wear a Seattle Kraken or Coachella Valley Firebird jersey, you’ll score priority boarding!

Now, through the end of the hockey season, Kraken fans who wear the teams’ jersey can board early on all Alaska flights departing from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) and Paine Field (PAE). American Hockey League fans of the Coachella Valley Firebirds, Palm Springs’ (PSP) new professional ice hockey expansion team of the Seattle Kraken, can also board early if they’re wearing Firebird gear.

Growing up in Mexico City, Bertha enjoyed running outside to watch planes fly overhead, dreaming about where they were coming from or going to.  

“I was born and raised in Mexico City. I’ve worked for many companies, from non-profit to exports, music business until Alaska introduced me to the airline business and stole my heart,” said Bertha, a reservations supervisor based in Phoenix.   

In the 26 years she’s been with us—as an agent, trainer, translation expert, and advocate for our Spanish-speaking guests and employees—she says it has all been a phenomenal ride and a dream come true.  

As a longtime member of our employee-led Latin Culture Resource Group (LCRG), Bertha says the group helps advocate for our Spanish-speaking guests and employees to better serve them traveling to/from any of our Mexico and Latin America destinations. The group also contributes to where we should fly within our network. 

We wanted to serve more and more cities, in the U.S. and beyond, where we could have our Hispanic communities experience our service and give us the opportunity to earn their loyalty,” she said. “Working with our LCRG team, we continue to look for opportunities to extend our wings to more and more Latin communities in cities we already serve.” 

Alaska has a long history of flying to Latin America, starting with the launch of service to Mexico more than 30 years ago—with routes to Cancun, Guadalajara, Loreto, Los Cabos, Manzanillo, Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta and Zihuatanejo. Bertha says she’s flown to most of the destinations; next on her list is Loreto.  

“I usually travel to Mexico two to three times a year to visit my mom and family. Plus, one or two additional trips with my husband and kids for fun,” she says. “The beauty of those places always takes my breath away and makes me feel happy. They offer what I enjoy most—history, traditions, beautiful beaches, delicious food, and lots of sunshine.” 

‘My goal is to become the airline of choice for the Hispanic community.’ 

Bertha also helped create our internal Spanish proficiency assessment, which assesses employees’ skills in reading, writing mechanics, and listening en Español. She conducts these assessments for all newly hired bilingual reservations agents. In addition, she collaborates with our Contact Center team to find an effective and efficient way to serve our guests who prefer to speak Spanish. 

“I’ve contributed to developing important resources and updates to our policies and procedures for our Spanish-speaking guests to help deliver the service they expect and deserve. My goal is that by continuing to advocate for resources, additional service and support for our bilingual agents, we can become the airline of choice for the Hispanic community within the U.S. and beyond,” said Bertha. “We offer competitive fares with the best service, and most of all, we have the best people in the industry. I have no doubt that once they give us the opportunity to serve them, they’ll love our service.” 

Why is Hispanic Heritage Month important to you?

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As Hispanic Heritage Month comes to a close, Alaska Airlines continues to strive for progress to increase diversity, equity and inclusion from both within our teams and the industry overall. We are excited to recognize and honor employees like Bertha and celebrate the contributions and influence they have have within our network and beyond.  

This fall, Alaska Air Cargo delivered the industry’s first and biggest fresh hops run to breweries in Maui and Anchorage within 24 hours of harvest—this was a huge logistical hop-eration that brought a favorite seasonal beer beyond the Pacific Northwest. 

Made from fresh-plucked, undried hops that are typically rushed straight from the fields to the breweries—Alaska went further than any U.S. Commercial airline has before by delivering more than 1,200 pounds of fresh hops to Maui Brewing Co. in Hawaii and 49th State Brewing in Alaska.  

This is a potential game-changer for the craft beer industry,” says Adam Drouhard, Alaska Air Cargo managing director, noting that Washington state grows almost three-quarters of the U.S. hop crop. “This puts a Northwest agricultural product in places that don’t normally get it. With the size and scope we have in Seattle, we are really positioned to own this.” 

How we made fresh hops fly. 

It all started with a deep appreciation of fresh hops beer and connecting the dots that Alaska Airlines could be the key to sharing it with the world. 

Jake Spotts, postal affairs manager on our cargo team, has tried beers all over the world during his 20-year Air Force career—but says there’s nothing better than the taste of fresh hops during harvest. Packed with unique floral flavor, fresh hop beers are usually made during the late-summer harvest by breweries located near farms in Washington, Oregon and other places in the Northwest.  

Spotts thought that because of our decades of expertise shipping perishable products like fresh Alaska salmon, we could find a way to ship fresh hops to breweries outside the Northwest.  Something that hadn’t been done by a U.S. airline on a commercial scale—until now. 

Farm-to-glass collaboration.

Craft brewers thrive on collaboration, and when the opportunity came to ship a large volume of fresh hops out of state, Yakima-based Bale Breaker Brewing Company helped us get the idea off the vine. 

The brewers at Bale Breaker, Maui Brewing Co. and 49th State worked together on beer recipes to highlight the hops’ fresh flavor, and coordinated logistics with the Alaska Air Cargo team and Yakima Chief Hops, a grower-owned organization that distributes hops for more than 50 farms across the Northwest. 

“Scalability of shipping fresh hops has really been the challenge to overcome because you only have about 24 hours from harvest before the hops start to degrade.”

– Bryan Pierce, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for Yakima Chief Hops. 

To keep the hops fresh throughout their journey, the harvest was timed perfectly so that the just-picked hops could be bagged onsite at Loftus Ranches, one of Yakima’s longest running family-owned hop farms and the site of Bale Breaker Brewing.    

From there, they were loaded into refrigerated trucks and driven to the Alaska Air Cargo offices at Sea-Tac International Airport just in time to load onto the aircraft. More than 1,200 pounds of hops were shipped nonstop to the brewers. 

On Maui and in Anchorage, the brewers were ready to add the fresh hops to the “boil” – the first stage in beer – as soon as they arrived. 

Raise a glass of liquid gold.  

This month, Alaska Lounge members and guests will have the chance to sip and savor fresh hop beers from the three breweries in this collaboration at our Lounges in Seattle, Portland and Anchorage airports. 

Links to B-Roll video and still images. 

Denise Clifton contributed to this story. Photos and video by Ingrid Barrentine. 

San Francisco Base Chief Pilot Kim was a young girl when she learned about flying.

“I was surrounded by neighbors and family friends, all of whom were pilots; I used to think how lucky those guys were to get to fly for a living,” Kim recently told a crowd attending the Silicon Valley Business Journal Women of Influencer Awards. “I was fascinated with anything having to do with flying and airplanes.”

But it wasn’t until years later, when she met a woman who was a commercial airline pilot, that she realized becoming a captain was actually in her reach.

“It was my ‘ah-ha’ moment that changed the trajectory of my life and ultimately brought me to Alaska Airlines,” she said.

Kim not only became a pilot – she’s made sure to teach young girls that the sky is the limit for them in the aviation industry.

“When I see a young child, I recognize the importance of stopping and taking the time and putting forth the effort to answer their questions and talk to them,” she says. “I feel like you never know when their ‘aha moment’ will happen like mine did.”

For the last 30 years, Kim has flown the Boeing 727, 737 and Airbus 320. Before her recent promotion to Base Chief Pilot, Kim was a captain and check pilot. She trained new pilots and helped with captain upgrades and proficiency checks for existing captains.

Kim makes Alaska proud as a skilled pilot but also because of her commitment to giving back.

She volunteers for the non-profit organization Pilots for Kids in San Francisco, which aims to bring a smile to young cancer patients at John Muir Medical Center by simulating “first flight” experiences.

From the comfort of their beds, the patients pretend they’re pilots taking off and landing their first flight as Kim and her colleagues act as the first officer and air traffic controller.

“I remember a young boy who was having a very difficult time, and you could hear him going, ‘Mom, this is the best hospital ever,’” Kim said. “You’re wiping the tears off your eyes because it’s pretty profound.”

Kim was among a group of volunteers who also painted a smiling airplane over a plain, white wall in the room where children receive chemotherapy at John Muir Health.

It may be no surprise to many that Kim was recently named a recipient of Alaska Airlines’ Legends Award, one of the company’s highest honors, for her accomplishments in the sky and on the ground.

It feels profoundly humbling to be in the company of people I admire and respect,” Kim said. “I feel like it’s a recognition of what all of us try to do every day in taking care of each other and our guests. It’s pretty special.”

When Texas Southern University Student Braylon Walker is performing his bass instrument on stage, his eyes are locked on the audience—making sure they’re connecting with his music and that it’s bringing them joy.

“I’ve wanted to be not just a musician but an entertainer,” said Braylon. “I love getting up there, letting people have a good time and understand the story I’m trying to tell.”

This weekend, Braylon will tell a story through his music at the Monterey Jazz Festival, the longest-running jazz festival in the world.

Braylon, a Texas Southern University (TSU) jazz performance major, is not going alone. Alaska surprised Braylon and about 40 HBCU choir and jazz students from TSU and Morgan State University with an all-expenses paid trip to the festival where they’ve been invited to perform.

For a lot of us, this is the first time going to a big jazz festival,” Braylon said. “Some people have never been on a plane or could never have afforded it. I’m one of those people. I’m super grateful.”

And, look out ’cause here’s Texas Southern:

Meanwhile, guests boarding their flight from Houston to Monterey also enjoyed an unexpected live performance by TSU students. [Download video]

https://vimeo.com/752329828

We had one more surprise for the students. The musically gifted group learned they would fly on the specially designed Our Commitment plane from Washington D.C. to Monterey. In 2021, the livery was created with UNCF to show Alaska Airlines’ joint commitment to education and advancing racial equity.

I’m excited that we can use the gift of flight to bring students to Monterey for this legendary event,” said Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci, who also serves on the UNCF Board of Directors. “Our ongoing support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities is one of the ways that we are living our commitment to advancing education and inclusion. We want our airline to be a place where everyone belongs, and we know we’re stronger when everyone has equal opportunity and a seat at the table.”

Q&A WITH TSU STUDENT BRAYLON WALKER 

What does it mean to you and your classmates to go to a festival like this? Not just to attend, but to perform? It’s super meaningful. It means a lot to see what we can become by looking at the people who’ve gone before us and for them to talk to us and reassure us that it can (sic) happen. It makes me feel like the path I’m choosing, the path I’ve spent seven years of my life trying to do, is coming to fruition. It’s happening.

How do you feel about the fact that we are supporting not just students, this next generation, but HBCUs? We’re more than thankful and feel very blessed to have that kind of relationship with many people who want to help us out or open the door to go to these types of venues. I’m blessed you guys are allowing it to happen to us.

What’s the sentiment with the rest of the choir and jazz ensemble students? The art form we want to be in can’t be done to heart inside a classroom. You have to live in the music to be able to make the music. You’ve got to feel it, you’ve got to live inside it, you got to know where this stuff is coming from, and there’s no better way to do it than going to where it’s at – living in the streets of it and hearing it every day when you wake up. 

What are you hoping to get out of the festival? First and foremost, I want to put on a good show. I want to show people that we got the stuff for it. And, my favorite singer Kurt Elling is there, and I want to give him a high five.

After this, what are you hoping for in your musical career? I finally got this urge, maybe a year ago, to dedicate myself to music, so I want to do that. I want to start going to the studio, to create, to collaborate with people. I want to do a podcast. I want all of it. I’m finally reassured that this is something I want to live in.