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Alaska Airlines CEO does the ALS ice bucket challenge

By Brad Tilden, Alaska Airlines CEO

Good morning.

I’ve been challenged by a number of my colleagues at Alaska and Horizon to do the ALS ice bucket challenge, to raise funds and awareness for Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Thanks to Horizon ground service agent Kipp Jarrell, and Alaska flight attendants Sarah Edwards, Sandra Morrow, Catherine Gwynn and Laura Masserant for challenging me. I’ve also made a personal donation to the ALS Association.

Next, I’d like to challenge my brother, Kevin Tilden; my good friend Kelly Lang, CFO at Tripwire; and my former boss Bill Ayer, former chairman, president and CEO of Alaska Airlines.

Special thanks to my wife, Danielle, and my niece, Ryan, for helping me film this video while on family vacation in Central Oregon.

#strikeoutALS

Celebrate National Relaxation Day with a complimentary drink on all Alaska Airlines flights today

alaskan amber beer onboard alaska airlines
#iflyalaska because …

Today is National Relaxation Day – a unique holiday that pays respect to everything that makes summer so special. From lounging on the beach to grilling burgers in your backyard (or enjoying a complimentary inflight cocktail on Alaska Airlines), there are countless ways to enjoy the day your own way.

To celebrate, we’re offering all passengers 21 and older a complimentary beer, wine or cocktail on all Alaska Airlines flights Friday, Aug. 15, as well as partnering with Tommy Bahama to give away some amazing prizes.

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Kitty hitchhiker gets a ride thanks to Facebook, Alaska employee

Itty Bitty Kitty at Kitty Harbor

They say cats have nine lives. Thanks to Alaska Airlines employee Robin Yong, a cat from West Seattle has all nine intact.

Yong heard the tale of Itty Bitty Kitty, a lost cat from West Seattle, via Facebook. Kitty, an older, orange and white tabby, ran away from home as his owners prepared to move from Seattle to Ohio. He missed the trip, slipping away as the car was being loaded. When his owner, Beth Lewis, realized that Itty Bitty was missing, the road trip was postponed as she searched high and low for her beloved pet.

But it was during the Fourth of July weekend, and the noise of fireworks likely kept him away. After a two-week delay, and no Kitty, the family made the painful decision to make the trip without him.

Several weeks later, a neighbor found the cat and called Kitty Harbor, a Seattle shelter and adoption facility for homeless cats and kittens. Itty Bitty Kitty arrived, looking like a mere shadow of his former self. Before, a plump 14 pounds, he had shrunk to only five pounds, had a gash in his throat, missing teeth and was full of fleas. Kitty Harbor provided medical care and a safe respite, nursing Kitty back to health.

Yet, while Lewis was thrilled that their beloved cat was found, she couldn’t drive or fly back to Seattle to get him. And Kitty couldn’t fly as cargo, due to his health.

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Flying high at ground level – checking out Alaska Airlines’ newest flight simulator

737 flight simulator at night
Learning how to fly an aircraft like the Boeing 737 is no simple task. By the time that most pilots make it through the doors of Alaska Airlines, they already have extensive experience either flying with other airlines or in the military. No matter their background, every pilot will need to go through Alaska Airlines’ three months of additional training.

Part of that training includes time in a flight simulator. The simulators allow pilots to experience different scenarios so that, if anything ever goes wrong during a real flight, they are prepared to handle the situation.

Besides being a very important safety and training tool, flight simulators can be quite entertaining for outsiders.

This week, I was invited to check out Alaska Airlines’ brand-new CAE 7000 Boeing 737-800 flight simulator. It is so new that pilots have not started training on it and it had a “new car” smell. The new simulator joins three others (one 737-400, one 737-700, and another 737-800) that are already at the facility. But this one is different, with the newest simulator technology, making it more real than its predecessors.

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Champions never rest: new Russell Wilson TV commercial debuts

Russell Wilson training camp - Champions Never Rest

One hot summer day not long ago, 40 production crew members, 13 Alaska Airlines employees and one star quarterback gathered on a middle school football field in Seattle for an elite training camp.

Champions never rest, after all, which is why we enlisted the support of our Chief Football Officer Russell Wilson to design a camp that only he could imagine.

Wilson, the starting quarterback for the champion Seattle Seahawks, led Alaska employees through a high-stepping obstacle course, a lost teddy bear running drill, snack delivery accuracy training – #snackuracy – and more.

This is an exclusive sneak peek at the first of three brand-new Alaska Airlines TV commercials featuring Wilson, shot on location in Seattle over the course of a 12-hour day. It will air on TV stations from Bellingham to Vancouver, Washington beginning Aug. 7.

New: see the outtakes.

Top seven destinations for fall foliage

Denali, Fairbanks in the autumn

Autumn is near and people are getting ready for an explosion of color that will light up the country. However, if you talk to a “leaf peeper,” (someone who travels to see the changing colors of fall foliage) you’ll learn that sight is only one part of the story. The crunch of leaves underfoot, the perfume of an apple orchard or the comforting smell of a wood fire are all parts of a true autumnal trip.

To really immerse yourself in leaf-peeping you have to stand among the trees and there’s no better way to get there than Alaska Airlines. Join us to experience some of the nation’s greatest sights with our top seven destinations for leaf-peepin’ this fall.

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After a curveball in travel plans, baseball player gets a lift from Horizon

When a recently promoted minor-league baseball player mistakenly got off the airplane in the wrong city, a Horizon Air employee stepped up to the plate to deliver him to his final destination 90 miles away.

Customer service agent Andrew Joshu drove from Great Falls, Montana, to Helena to help Sthervin Matos make it to the ballpark just in time for the first pitch.

Moments later, in his first game with his new team, Matos hit a home run.

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Alaska Airlines employees bring Alaska to Minnesota

Joanne_birthday_1

Joanne Mambretti had been to every state in the country, save one – Alaska. She had planned a birthday trip to finally check it off her bucket list when a breast cancer recurrence made her too ill to go.

That’s when a group of Alaska and Menzies Aviation (Alaska’s ramp, passenger and cargo handling service) employees decided to take Alaska to Mambretti in Minneapolis.

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5 things to know about Horizon Air

For those not familiar with the heart and history behind Horizon Air, the nation’s seventh-largest regional airline, here are five things you might not know.

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Onboard cocktails: celebrate summer with a ginger sunrise

You don’t have to be at cruising altitude on “#TravelTuesday” to enjoy one of our favorite onboard cocktails.

This refreshing take on a classic gin-orange buck (an old name for a cocktail with ginger) is shared by Erik Chapman, barman at Seattle’s Sun Liquor Distillery, a small, local business which produces the premium gin, rum and vodka served onboard Alaska Airlines flights.

Flying today? Ask for orange juice and ginger ale with your Sun Liquor Hedge Trimmer Gin – and don’t forget the lemon garnish.

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A machine that prints pancakes

How many breakfast chefs does it take to make 180 pancakes in an hour?

None, if you have a pancake machine.

For those of you who’ve spent any time in an Alaska Airlines Board Room, you know what we’re talking about.

If you haven’t, imagine an office printer. But instead of paper, it prints fluffy, delicious pancakes.

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Shipping 353 pounds of vinyl memories on Alaska Air Cargo

One hot night in the early 1960s in a tiny music hall in New Orleans, a group of jazz musicians got together to pay tribute to Sam Morgan’s Jazz Band, some three decades after Morgan’s death. New Orleans jazz scene regulars Kid Howard and Kid Sheik were there, on the trumpet and cornet, respectively. Ken Mills of Preservation Hall fame was there to facilitate.

The band had been playing for a little while when they were interrupted by a frantic pounding on the door. It was an elderly man who’d heard the music wafting through the streets and come running.

“Sam Morgan’s back! Sam Morgan’s back!”

My grandfather cries when he tells this story.

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