Photos by Ingrid Barrentine. 

Alaska’s holiday sweater is back! This year we are selling our sweaters for a good cause to provide holiday meals to those in need in our communities.

All proceeds from sales of our holiday sweaters will be donated to United Way’s Ride United Last-Mile Delivery initiative, which partners local United Ways with DoorDash and its “Dashers” (drivers) to deliver food from local food banks, food pantries and other distribution points to senior citizens, low income families and those who can’t leave home.

Since 2017, Alaska Airlines has spread holiday cheer by offering guests wearing any kind of holiday sweater priority boarding on National Ugly Sweater Day. Unfortunately, due to social distancing guidelines and new boarding processes, we will not be offering this one-day promotion. However, we invite guests to purchase their own Alaska Ugly Sweater and give back to the community at: companystore.alaskaair.com.

If our holiday sweaters run out, don’t worry, you can still support United Way by visiting their website.

We are grateful for this generous donation that will support our food relief efforts, particularly during the holiday season, when so many in our community are still struggling. This gift illustrates Alaska Airlines’ strong support for the community and for our long-standing partnership, as we try to meet the tough challenges caused by the pandemic,” said Gordon McHenry, Jr., United Way of King County president and CEO.

Chief Football Officer Russell Wilson also joined in the effort with giving to United Way through his Why Not You Foundation.

I love to give back. And what’s better than giving back to our communities while dressed in Alaska Airlines’ famous holiday sweater?” Wilson said. “Together, let’s help out the United Way’s Ride United Last-Mile Delivery program and look fly while doing it.”

2020 holiday sweaters helped Alaska donate one million meals.

When the pandemic began impacting the U.S. earlier this year, we launched our #MillionMealsChallenge to give one million meals to food banks across the country.

Through this challenge we donated 1,394,214 meals to those in need. Besides our donation to United Way, we also donated food from our local kitchens to food banks, we matched our employees’ donations to local food banks and also supported through grants from the Alaska Airlines Foundation, an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit arm of the airline.

We are so proud and beyond grateful to all of our guests, partners and employees who have helped us provide one million meals to communities and people we serve across the country,” said Joelle Nausin, community relations manager. “With the pandemic impacting so many people’s ability to get out and visit food banks, this effort is critical.”

Alaska Airlines recently hosted a virtual conversation with some of the world’s leading COVID-19 experts from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and UW Medicine. Our goal was to share the latest vaccine research and vaccine developments, how to protect yourself and others during the pandemic and what we’re doing to keep guests safe when they travel.

Guests from across the country joined in and asked nearly 1,000 questions for the medical experts, which included topics like what the best kind of mask is to wear, and how long the virus lasts in your system and where we’re at with the latest vaccine.

Check out the full recap of the one-hour virtual event and responses to some of the top unanswered questions below.

Watch the full discussion

Rising to the Challenges of a Pandemic: A Conversation with Experts from Alaska Airlines, Fred Hutch, UW Medicine

The conversation was hosted by Luke Burbank of Live Wire and brought to you by Alaska Airlines.

Questions & Answers

Is air travel safe?

Yes. At Alaska, we believe air travel is safe. Recent studies have found airplanes are among the most low-risk indoor environments in the world. And with our Next-Level Care, Alaska Airlines is prepared to give you the safest, cleanest and most enjoyable travel experience from start to finish. Alaska’s Next-Level Care includes 100+ ways to maintain the highest standard of safety throughout your travels, including mask requirements, enhanced cleaning, hospital-grade high efficiency particulate air filters on board and no change fees.

Is Alaska Airlines considering requiring flyers to vaccinate before they fly?

No. Several recent scientific studies about air travel concluded that it is safe to fly by following a layered approach using masks, hand sanitizer and air filtration. With more than 100 safety protocols in place, including mandatory masks, enhanced cleaning between flights, HEPA air filtration and touch-free technology, we believe it’s safe to fly and will not require guests to vaccinate before they fly on Alaska Airlines at this time.

Is the air onboard filtered during boarding and deplaning and while the plane is taxing at an airport? What about during deicing?

The sophisticated air filtration system and HEPA filters on our aircraft are actively working during the boarding and deplaning process. During cold weather, when we need to deice the plane, the system exchanges air through our HEPA filters the entire time while also preventing deice fluid fumes from entering the aircraft.

Is the air you breathe on a plane the same air from takeoff to landing? No. Our aircraft exchange fresh air from outside and through hospital-grade HEPA filters every 2 to 3 minutes. The entire cabin air is completely refreshed about every 6 minutes. The filters onboard remove 99.9% of airborne contaminants. Read more about Alaska’s HEPA filtration process.

How effective are masks and social distancing? What types of masks are acceptable: disposable paper, cloth, home-made, nose closure or not (bendable wire)?

Masks are one of the most important ways we can protect ourselves and others from infection, which is why Alaska has its strict mask policy—no mask, no travel. Fred Hutch researcher Dr. Josh Schiffer’s work suggests that if both an infected and an uninfected person are wearing masks, the risk of transmission drops by 40% to 80%, depending on the effectiveness of the mask.

The CDC recommends that masks have two or more layers of breathable fabric that completely cover the nose and mouth and snugly fit around the sides of one’s face. The denser the weave of the fabric, the better, as these create a better filter for droplets and aerosols. Read more about Dr. Schiffer’s opinion in the New York Times.

How long is a person contagious before they test positive for the virus?

How soon after infection a person can test positive for the virus, and when they become contagious, depends on the initial amount of virus that triggered the infection.

Sophisticated models by researchers like Dr. Josh Schiffer at Fred Hutch show that people are most infectious from about two days before they start to show symptoms until a day or so after they show symptoms. That three- to four-day window is when people are most infectious and likely represent the earliest time point at which they would return a positive PCR sample.

How long does the antibody remain in your body? Would an antibody test today be able to tell if I had COVID-19 in March?

This is an open question that researchers are still investigating. While there have been anecdotes about re-infection, an outbreak at a Wisconsin summer school retreat provides a little more cause for optimism. Interestingly, the outbreak was seeded by one student who received a negative COVID-19 test one week before camp but tested positive shortly after arriving and developing symptoms. During the retreat, 118 of the 152 attendees tested positive or had COVID-19 symptoms. However, 24 of the 34 who did not contract the disease had previously been infected and recovered, suggesting some level of protection.

Researchers around the world, including Dr. Jesse Bloom at the Hutch, have been studying the persistence of antibodies over time following infection and will know more as more data becomes available.

When will we know more about the long-term impacts of COVID-19, especially its effects on blood clotting?

Given that COVID-19 emerged less than a year ago, scientists have made astounding progress understanding the disease. However, it’s too soon for us to fully understand the long-term impacts, even as we hear stories about long-haulers. A study by Fred Hutch’s Dr. Julie McElrath is following people after infection to learn more about long-term impacts and the factors that might predispose people to these effects.

When viruses or other pathogens mutate, do they generally become more or less virulent? And what about COVID in particular?

While it is true that some viruses mutate rapidly, making vaccines tricky, that does not appear to be the case for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Since the start of the pandemic, Fred Hutch researcher Dr. Trevor Bedford has been tracking tiny changes to the virus’s genetic code (mutations) as it moves from person to person . Based on this tracking, we know that SARS-CoV-2 is not changing as rapidly as other viruses, including flu and HIV. Crucially, only one mutation that has emerged has successfully propagated, and it is located at a site in the genome where it is unlikely to interfere with antibodies the vaccine will produce. Read more about Dr. Bedford and his award-winning open-source software, Nextstrain, in Vanity Fair.

The virus’s history, of course, does not predict its future. Hutch researchers are cognizant that mutations could emerge that affect the region that vaccines target: the virus’s spike. With that in mind, Dr. Jesse Bloom has measured how virtually every possible mutation to the spike region would affect the virus’s ability to escape detection from vaccines and other antibody-based treatments without compromising its ability to infect cells. His work will inform future treatments and vaccines.

If a person has one type of COVID-19 vaccine, would it be okay to have a different type of COVID-19 vaccine later?

If different types of vaccines are found to have equivalent safety and efficacy profiles, this idea could be an intriguing one. Researchers would need to design studies carefully to determine the right order to ensure an optimal immunity boost. This will need careful study before researchers are able to recommend whether, and in what order, people should get two different vaccines.

Do the vaccines alter your own RNA?

The short answer is no: Messenger RNA (mRNA) is short-lived and cannot be incorporated into our genetic code. The first few vaccines that are likely to be approved — made by Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Janssen —use a few different mechanisms to deliver mRNA which elicits an immune reaction to fight the virus.

Are there any treatments that our doctors can easily prescribe that minimize the impact of the disease if we get Covid?

Currently, treatments such as remdesivir (an antiviral drug), dexamethasone (an anti-inflammatory), and monoclonal antibodies such as those given to President Trump (virus blocking and targeting) are being prescribed to people with severe disease, and they appear to have some effect. There is, however, a need for treatments that can be prescribed earlier in the course of the disease, and there is no proof that the same treatments will work then. To expand the treatments available for patients, Fred Hutch launched the COVID-19 Clinical Research Center, the nation’s first freestanding facility dedicated to studying early coronavirus interventions. The goal with these treatments is to interrupt the disease early, reducing the severity and preventing hospitalization. We are currently enrolling patients for several clinical trials of promising therapies.

Would volunteering for the vaccine trial require a drive to Seattle?

No. You can learn more about the vaccine trials at preventcovid.org.

I assume mRNA vaccine will translate spike proteins in cells throughout the body, not just the lungs. What danger is there of triggering an unexpected cytokine/inflammation response?

All vaccines go through three phases of human testing before being approved by the FDA and distributed to the public.

• Phase 1 clinical trials show if a vaccine is safe in humans and measure how the immune system responds to it.
• Phase 2 trials enroll hundreds of volunteers and show whether the biological signals of effectiveness show up in those assigned randomly to a vaccine instead of a placebo.
• Phase 3 trials enroll large numbers of people — 30,000 and 60,000 in the U.S. and worldwide — to prove that the vaccine reduces the risk of infection or serious illness to protect individuals and communities from COVID-19.

Data from these studies are assessed by an independent Data Safety and Monitoring Board to confirm the safety of the vaccines. If volunteers experience serious health problems, researchers investigate to determine whether they were caused by the vaccine. If these vaccines trigger an adverse response in any way, these trials will catch them and pause, as they did with AstraZeneca and Janssen, to determine if they were caused by the vaccine.

Meet the panel:

Josh Nice is the Director of Quality Assurance at Alaska Airlines. With more than 25 years of experience in roles managing safety training and compliance, Josh is a member of the Alaska Airlines COVID-19 Safety Team that is responsible for identifying and reducing the risks related to COVID-19 across our operation, both for guests and Alaska employees. He also leads the effort to audit COVID-19 safety measures at airports and Alaska’s corporate workspace.

Dr. Michele Andrasik is one of the directors of the Hutch-based HIV Vaccine Trials Network where she focuses on HIV prevention and social and structural factors that cause health inequities. She is drawing on her expertise to ensure that communities of color who are hardest hit by the coronavirus are adequately represented in vaccine trials hosted by the Coronavirus Prevention Network.

Dr. Keith Jerome is a virologist at Fred Hutch and director of the University of Washington’s Molecular Virology Laboratory. Thanks to his team’s quick work to develop a test for COVID-19, the Virology Lab at the UW School of Medicine which has done more than a million COVID-19 tests since early March. His group continues to improve testing, including developing rapid point-of-care tests.

Dr. John Lynch is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine and an associate medical director at Harborview Medical Center. Dr. Lynch oversees the hospital’s Infection Prevention & Control, Employee Health and Sepsis Programs and is currently leading the clinical team for UW Medicine’s COVID-19 Emergency Operations Center. His focus is on the prevention of infections within healthcare settings.

Emcee, Luke Burbank is an American radio host and podcaster who hosts the Portland, Oregon-based syndicated variety show Live Wire Radio and the Seattle-based former radio program and current podcast Too Beautiful to Live.

While November serves as a time for giving and spending quality time with loved ones, it also serves as an opportunity to reflect on the contributions that Indigenous people have made to our country and communities.

Our airline’s roots run deep in the state of Alaska. For more than 88 years, we’ve been a lifeline for many Alaska Natives by flying necessary essentials for their everyday life. We value this relationship and would also like to honor all diverse Native communities in which we serve and fly within North America, Costa Rica and Mexico.

To celebrate this month, our employees shared how they connect with their Native heritage and their thoughts on what they would like people to know about their culture:

With heart and Steilacoom spirit

Anchorage-based Alaska inflight supervisor Robyn D. says with her connection to the Steilacoom Indian Tribe, it felt natural to join Alaska’s Native Employee Network (NEN) 14 years ago, of which she has been chair of since 2017. NEN is Alaska’s business resource group filled with passion for uplifting Alaska Native and Native American employees.

“For me, Native American Heritage Month isn’t a specific month to be recognized but is a culture that fills my heart and spirit daily. I am proud to be enrolled as a tribal citizen in the Steilacoom Indian Tribe. Our Culture Center and Museum is located in Steilacoom, WA, and I briefly sat on the council until relocating to Anchorage. I still love attending tribal gatherings and have wonderful memories watching my uncle Adam cook salmon on cedar planks in front of an open fire and learning how to basket weave from my uncle Les.”

Uvna Agaa Qikiqtagrumi (I’m Agaa, I’m from Kotzebue.)

Kotzebue is a small town located thirty-three miles above the Arctic Circle. At the airport there, Alaska Customer Service Agent Chloe N. has made it a point to share one Inupiaq “word of the day” in her training classes.

She says in English her name is Chloe, but “Agaa” is her Yupik name. Chloe was named after her great uncle Agaa, who is from Kotlik, originally from St. Mary’s, Alaska.

“Every morning, I’d share a lesson on an Inupiaq word, how to pronounce it, what it means and then quizzed the class on the word from the previous day. Of course, I started with ‘tiNmisuun,’ which means ‘airplane.’ My teammates loved learning Inupiaq, and it made me feel proud to share my heritage with them.”

The importance of history and the resurgence of Native pride

Juneau, Alaska ramp service agent Jerry A. is of Tlingit heritage; a tribe that stretches throughout the southeast panhandle of Alaska into British Columbia, as well as the Yukon Territory and Skokomish Coastal Salish tribes in Washington state. He says he is half Alaska Native from his mom’s side, and half Native American from his dad’s side.

“I recognize Native American Heritage Month as a special time because there is a variety of community education work that comes from a wide range of diverse tribes and organizations, which for me, is the Sealaska Heritage Institute. They have been sharing information throughout the month via their YouTube page and other social media channels,” said Jerry.

One thing the average person may not be aware of he says, unfortunately, is the generational trauma that has trickled down, influencing some Native families and individuals, with missed opportunities to learn, embrace and celebrate their culture out of fear or shame. This has led to the endangerment of Native history and language. Fortunately, there has been a resurgence in the last several years to educate those willing to learn with an emphasis on teaching children. For example, before the pandemic, there were elementary school classes that integrated the Tlingit language into the learning curriculum. “I’m looking forward to the work resuming to help reignite our Native pride,” he says.

Family, feasts and feelings of fulfillment

Anchorage-based Alaska Flight Attendant Melissa K. says she feels it’s important for people, especially Alaska employees, to learn more about Native culture; as a half-Inupiaq person whose mother is from King Island and great grandfather was the chief there, she has great pride in her ancestry. King Island, located in the middle of the Bering Sea, is no longer inhabited. Once a thriving community before being overtaken with tuberculosis, the people migrated to Nome, Alaska and other villages in 1959.

“We are resilient and resourceful. Subsistence and sustainability are still a big thing in Alaska; everything we hunt, we eat. We use every part of the animal, and we fill our freezers in the winter,” said Melissa. “When I visit home, I connect with my culture and my family with a Native feast.”

Proud family history and dreams of flying come true

While Portland-based Captain Jay W. spends the bulk of his adult life in Washington state, he hopes to share Native traditions his mom and family taught him with his children, like berry picking in Nome, Alaska.

“The Native experience for me involves respect for the land, resources and elders and the ability to share that with future generations,” said Jay. “Summers in Nome were very busy, as it included a subsistence lifestyle of gathering food for the frozen winter months, much like our ancestors did. In the summer months, we traveled to a fish camp called Nook and would stay there for weeks. When not catching and drying fish, we would spend time in the tundra picking berries and greens. Most of the food would be stored for wintertime.”

Native traditions, and the importance of honoring language

Growing up fishing, hunting and gathering in Koyukuk, Alaska to live a subsistence lifestyle, Seattle-based Alaska Flight Attendant Sherri K. says her grandmother also taught her to sew/ knit and the importance of language.

“What I would like for people to know about my culture is that there is a lot of non-verbal communication in the Native communities that non-Natives are not familiar with. It is often misunderstood as being ignored or non-responsive,” said Sherri. “I also feel that it’s essential for us – especially as employees – to learn the proper pronunciation of Alaska places and landmarks by asking Alaska Natives or doing an online search for Native Alaska pronunciations. Taking the time to try and get it right is an important part of respecting our culture and the residents born and raised in these communities.”

Alaska Airlines Native Employee Network

At Alaska, our Native Employee Network (NEN) business resource group provides social and networking opportunities for our Alaska Native and Native American employees so they feel committed and connected to their workplace. In addition to supporting Alaska and Horizon’s commitment to attracting and retaining Alaska Native and Native American employees and customers, NEN works with our company to continue being a neighborhood partner by volunteering in the communities we serve.

Shanyn Wright conducted interviews and contributed to this story. Shanyn is a West Coast nomad, having bounced around from Hawai’i to California and now, Washington. No matter where she goes, Shanyn tries to spread the Aloha spirit by sharing culture and is a multimedia communications specialist at Alaska Airlines and member of Alaska’s Pacific Islander Alliance Business Resource Group.

Last week, Alaska Airlines operated its first flight with a cabin full of mail instead of passengers. Since reducing our flying due to the coronavirus, we’ve been looking at other ways to utilize passenger aircraft to carry essential goods to people and businesses who need it most.

This mail-illion dollar idea and FAA-approved-design allows cargo to use all available space on the main deck for essential goods like mail, medical equipment, e-commerce packages and other freight.

Each one of these flights can carry close to 30,000 pounds of cargo, including belly capacity where luggage is typically stored.

Trying to pull off a passenger-to-freighter operation is relatively new. No other known carriers in the country are doing anything similar on domestic flights, with cargo on seats. After months of planning, we worked with HAECO, one of the world’s leading independent aircraft engineering and maintenance groups, to be their first launch customer in North America.

“Our teams have been working since the pandemic hit to identify the safest and most effective processes to increase our cargo capacity,” said Torque Zubeck, managing director of cargo. “HAECO’s design will allow us to maximize the available space, increase our cargo capacity and protect the supply chain by connecting critical cargo to the communities we serve during this public health crisis.”

How does it work?

First, the cargo container bags are installed on the passenger rows by the maintenance team, a process that can take six to eight hours.

Each container bag is limited to 110 pounds of mail to meet FAA requirements, and once fitted, the main deck will carry an additional 13,500 pounds of cargo on top of what a passenger-only cargo flight can carry. Our seats did not require any modifications to install the containers, the existing seat belts are used to secure the bag.

Once the containers are installed and safely secured, the cargo flight is equipped for its scheduled route. The crew for these cargo flights will consist of two pilots and cargo load agents. The cargo load agents will be seated in the jumpseat during the flight and provide oversight of loading, ensure proper tagging and cargo integrity. They’ll also provide fire suppression if required and will make sure cargo is safe and secure within the in-seat package stowage system.

Over 100,000 pounds of mail to Alaska are expected daily this winter.

What happens next? Although we have just one cargo aircraft fitted with the in-seat solution, we’re planning to continue flying it in the state of Alaska to help with the holiday rush. The passenger aircraft will operate alongside our 3 freighters to supplement heavy holiday demands, which will help to free up space for cargo that truly needs the freighter.

Depending on its continued success, Alaska hopes to expand the cargo container solution to other 737-900 aircraft throughout the rest of the winter. The extra capacity could allow us to bring 100,000 pounds of additional e-commerce into Southeast Alaska.

In the spirit of giving back as Hawaii tourism recovers, Alaska Airlines will plant one tree for every flight we fly to the Hawaiian Islands from now through the end of the year, in support of Malama Hawaii. Malama means to “take care,” and as visitors return to Hawaii, the Islands are asking travelers to be respectful of Hawaii’s beauty and leave with a better understanding of what it means to care for the earth and each other.

Whether you plan to work from Hawaii or are planning a future trip to the islands, we’re encouraging our guests to experience the Islands on a deeper level with a greater emphasis on connecting with the community, culture and to leave Hawaii better than when they arrived — and help preserve it for the future. Now through the end of 2020, Alaska will plant nearly 900 trees, in partnership with the Hawaiian Legacy Reforestation Initiative. We invite our guests to join us in support of Malama Hawaii by sponsoring their very own Alaska Airlines Legacy Tree or participating in another volunteer activity during their visit.

Why trees? Trees produce oxygen for the environment while improving our air, land, and water quality. According to HLRI, when you plant a native endemic tree, like the Milo tree, it helps to reforest lands in Hawaii that have been decimated by livestock and commercialization. Native Hawaiian birds, insects and wildlife also benefit from these forests, as well as the environment and lands that are passed on to the next generation.

“Travel has fundamentally changed, and travelers have become aware of their personal impact on the places they visit now more than ever,” said Jeffrey Dunster, Hawaiian Legacy Reforestation Initiative’s co-founder and executive director. “By planting an Alaska Airlines Legacy Tree and helping to offset your carbon footprint during your stay in Hawaii, you’ll be making a difference for our island home — and the only footprint you’ll leave behind will be left in the sand of our beautiful beaches.”

While visiting Hawaii might look and feel different these days, visitors can count on strengthening their connection to the Islands by experiencing its natural beauty and learning from its residents — all while helping regenerate the destination.

“As we welcome visitors back to Hawaii, we want to support awareness of mindful travel to the Islands—both in the air and on the ground,” said Daniel Chun, Alaska’s director of sales, community and public relations for Hawaii, who is also a Hawaii Tourism Authority board member. “Alaska has always taken great pride in being responsible stewards of the places we fly, and we hope our guests take pride in this, too. We’re excited to support Malama Hawaii, as it provides a way for our guests to partner with local residents and organizations to help strengthen the communities they visit.”

When you’re ready to explore, rejuvenate and reconnect, Hawaii is waiting for you and offers plenty of opportunities to not only visit, but to give back to Hawaii.

Book a stay that really stays with you at alaskaair.com.

COVID testing for Alaska flyers.

We’re helping our guests travel to destinations that require a negative COVID-19 test result. Hawaii’s pre-travel testing program allows anyone entering the state who tests negative for COVID-19 in advance to proceed without the current 14-day mandatory quarantine. Learn more.

We’re partnering with multiple testing providers such as Carbon Health, Bartell Drugs and Costco to offer COVID-19 testing — available by appointment in-person, at-home, or drive-thru. More details.

Related:

• Hawaii welcomes you back and to malama (care for) the Aloha State
• 5 ways to make your trip to Hawaii as smooth as possible
• Everything you need to know before you go to Hawaii