Havana inaugural isn’t Alaska’s first flight to Cuba
When Alaska Airlines began service to Havana on Jan. 5, it wasn’t the first time the airline had flown to Cuba. In the early 1970s, Alaska flew U.S. Military Airlift Command charter flights to the base at Guantanamo Bay, as well as charters to Caribbean locations such as Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Panama. Some of…
Fun fact: Alaska was first U.S. airline to sell tickets online
This news release was originally issued on Dec. 27, 1995, and is reposted here in its entirety in honor of Internet Day Oct. 29, which commemorates the day when computers at UCLA and Stanford first made a host-to-host connection. Alaska was the first airline in the U.S. to explore the uncharted world of the Internet, with a…
Throwback Thursday: It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s got skis?
Alaska Airlines has been known for a lot of firsts. First airline to offer booking tickets on the Internet and first airline to guarantee your bags arrive on time. But passengers today would do a double-take if they had seen one of Alaska’s early firsts—first airline certified by the FAA to take off and land…
Throwback Thursday: Windshield sushi – Alaska Airlines jet really did hit a fish in midair
The airplane that hit a fish is one of the most legendary stories in Alaska Airlines lore. Like all great fish tales, the size of the fish grows with every telling, but the story that made headlines around the world in 1987 is completely true. (Although it probably didn’t help that newspapers published the story…
#TBT: Alaska’s 1980s TV campaign stands the test of time
A businessman flags down a cab for a ride to the airport. As the lethargic cabbie asks ‘what airline,’ and learns it’s Alaska, a high-speed chase ensues, while the businessman, sliding back and forth as the cab hugs the turns, yells, “but airlines never leave on time!” Arriving at the airport, the flight has already…
Throwback Thursday: the golden what?
Three-quarters of a century after the cries of “Gold! Gold! In the Klondike!” a quirky little airline with deep roots in the state of Alaska decided to pay its own tribute to the gold rush. Alaska Airlines’ “Golden Nugget Service” era launched in the early 1960s, and passengers would not soon forget it.