Oh Hawaii, land of warmth and beautiful beaches, of delicious food and welcoming culture. I have a love affair with Hawaii. Working for an airline, I’m able to travel a lot and have been to the islands over 20 times — twice to Kauai in the last six months.
The island of Kauai does have those things in abundance — warmth, beaches, food, and culture. But it’s also known as the Garden Island, and those wanting to get up close and personal with nature may find it their favorite of all the Hawaiian isles.
Fly a flight simulator with a pilot, turn a wrench on a jet engine with a mechanic, evacuate an aircraft with a flight attendant, students had the opportunity to try their hand at all three at the eighth annual Alaska Airlines Aviation Day today.
More than 1,000 Seattle-area youth gathered at the Alaska Airlines hangar in SeaTac May 21, to learn about careers in the aviation and aerospace industries. Each year, Aviation Day aims to show youth a path to a rewarding career in the aviation field by allowing them to interact with industry professionals.
“We want to build a bridge from high school onto college and then to a career in aviation or aerospace,” said Alaska First Officer Allen Cassino. “We are laying out the stepping stones to show youth in our local communities just that. They can be a pilot! They can be an engineer! They can be an aircraft mechanic! Maybe even an executive at Alaska Airlines!”
For the 24 hours leading up to the Copper River salmon season opener each year, the fishermen of Cordova, Alaska may as well be 5-year-olds waiting for Christmas.
The season doesn’t officially open until 7 a.m. on the mid-May morning chosen by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (this year on May 16), but the countdown holds so much anticipation that the harbor begins to empty days before as boats head out to the fishing grounds so they can start catching fish as soon as the season opens. Fishing families count the minutes until they can finally drop nets in the water once more.
“We have a saying – ‘When the salmon return, all is right with the world,’” says Cathy Sherman, public information officer for the City of Cordova and director of the Cordova Historical Museum. “For the fishermen, it’s tradition. You’re doing what you’ve always done and what your family’s done before you.”
No terrain is too difficult to conquer for avid ultrarunner, Alex Borsuk. Hailing from Portland, Oregon, Alex can likely be found hitting the trail with her partner in crime, Peanut, by her side. She just returned from an Instagram takeover in Santa Barbara, California as part of Alaska’s Weekend Wanderer series. For more Weekend Wanderer posts, make sure you’re following Alaska Airlines on Instagram.
As an ultrarunner and adventurer, I typically find myself deep in the mountains. That’s why I was really excited when Alaska Airlines invited me to visit Santa Barbara to run the Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathon. I couldn’t wait to run around and explore Santa Barbara, taste some of the best wines in the United States, relax on the beach, and eat tons of tacos.
Alaska Airlines serves up 37,000 cups of coffee a day on its more than 900 daily flights, brewed using more than 250,000 pounds of Starbucks coffee each year. Ensuring that those grounds go back into the earth and not into the trash is the goal of a new composting effort at Alaska Airlines.
Gardeners know that coffee grounds make for great plant food and that they are environmentally friendly. But gathering the used grounds and filters on more than 500 flights a day is a challenge, says Alaska Airlines Food and Beverage Specialist Kathy Hues.
One of the problems is getting past the ewww factor.
By Kathryn Drury Wagner for Alaska Beyond Magazine
It’s an intense progression, becoming a reality TV star. One evening Lauren Bushnell was contemplating her dating life in Los Angeles, and the next, the path to becoming one of the most talked about and envied women in the country was laid out before her, a glimpse of an alluring but uncertain trail. Most certainly, she would not walk it alone.
Over the next several months, an average of 8 million people watched Lauren B. each week as she dated on national television.
They watched her dine with a handsome software salesman named Ben Higgins as his other would-be love interests faded from the limelight.
They increasingly saw her on the cover of Us Weekly and other supermarket publications.
More than a million fans followed her on Instagram.
Luckily for the winner of Season 20 of The Bachelor, Lauren B. had her training to help keep her focused.
“Everyone kept saying how calm and collected I seemed on the show,” the Alaska Airlines flight attendant says. “In my head, I wasn’t. I was nervous, and anxious, and falling in love.”
It was her flying experience that helped her keep her composure. “No matter what kind of day I have, I can keep my cool,” she says of her three years with Alaska.
As a wedding and couture gown designer, one of the questions I am asked most frequently by my brides is, “How do I travel with my wedding dress?”
While peak wedding season typically picks up in summer and early fall, today’s brides are getting married year round, and many of them will travel to destination weddings.
Wedding planning website The Knot recently released its 2015 Real Weddings Study, and I’m not surprised by the results. Of the 18,000 couples surveyed, 21 percent planned a destination wedding in 2015, and 49 percent were married 200 miles or more from where they lived.
For many brides, the dress is the most important and personal element of the ceremony, and the thought of packing it in a suitcase or storing it in an overhead bin during a flight can be daunting. Luckily, with the right technique it is both easy and safe to pack your dress!
Iceland is a tiny island surrounded by icy ocean; its nearest neighbors are icebergs and whales. Given that, it would be easy to miss Iceland completely, except that the country is perfectly placed midway between the United States and Europe. This makes it a perfect stopover for those journeying across the Atlantic. And, if you’re going to stop even momentarily in this small, but unique place, why not extend your layover a little longer and see what all the buzz is about?
This is what Iceland’s booming tourism industry is based on. Many people first visit Iceland on a layover, then return again to explore even more deeply. Because, while it’s quite easy to get a good taste of Iceland in just a handful of days, you’ll absolutely find yourself wanting more.
I journeyed to Iceland for a quick three-day stopover, thanks to Icelandair’s direct flight from Seattle to Keflavik Airport. Ten hours is a long journey, but a spacious Economy Comfort seat and plenty of inflight entertainment made the time pass quickly.
After 36 years with Alaska Airlines, Captain Mike Swanigan will make his final flight this weekend.
“Captain Swani” plans to retire after one last round-trip Sunday: Flight 648 Seattle-Tucson and then Flight 641 Tucson-Seattle, scheduled to arrive about 4:30 p.m.
Swanigan says he tries to live each day with gratitude – it’s his philosophy, his humor and his dynamic approach to life that has made him a legend at Alaska Airlines.
“My parents taught me: If you aren’t making someone else’s day, you don’t deserve to be on planet Earth,” Swanigan said.
Would you rather relax on the beach or explore an urban jungle? With stopovers, you can do both on your next award trip.
You’re all set to redeem your Mileage Plan miles – but wait! Did you know that Alaska Airlines allows you to include a free stopover on many award tickets? They allow you to stop in another city on the way to your final destination, squeezing in two trips for the price of one. You can spend days or even weeks before continuing the trip.
Residing in Portland, Oregon, Jon Trend is a photographer with an eye for the undiscovered shot who uses the city as his natural backdrop. He just returned from an Instagram takeover in Washington, D.C. as part of Alaska’s Weekend Wanderer series. For more Weekend Wanderer posts, make sure you’re following Alaska Airlines on Instagram.
Exploring Washington D.C. was nothing like I had expected it to be. The rich history and beautiful architecture were so captivating, and I couldn’t put my camera down during my entire trip. As I walked through the monuments and explored the vast art galleries and museums, I was overwhelmed with inspiration.
The first thing I noticed while exploring Washington D.C. was how clean the city was. Every place I wandered to, hung out at, and dined in was spotless. There was just something so sharp and refined about this city that I wasn’t used to.
While photographing my way around the city, one place that stood out to me was the Library of Congress. While observing the amount of detail in every piece of the architecture and the elegant murals that lined the interior, I felt like I transported to a whole new world. It has always fascinated me how diverse every part of our country really is.
Aside from the unpredictable weather, my trip to Washington D.C. was more than a success. I was able to see and cross things off my bucket list, experience a new part of the country I had never visited before, and immerse myself in the history I’ve only read about in books. Now I can say from firsthand experience that Washington D.C. is one destination that should be on everybody’s bucket list.
Alaska Airlines has run out of “AS” tail numbers and will start using “AK” on new deliveries starting this month.
The first plane with the new label – a 737-900ER registered as N224AK – is scheduled for delivery next week.
FAA registration numbers are similar to a car’s license plate. In the U.S., each civilian aircraft’s registration number starts with N followed by five characters. Anyone can reserve personalized number/letter combinations – and Alaska doesn’t have exclusive rights to AS.
“Considering our airline growth, and understanding we were running out of AS registrations, we searched for a new, meaningful set of trailing letters and settled on AK – the two-letter code for the State of Alaska,” said Russell Summers, manager of aircraft acquisitions.
