ST:
Alaska Air Group reported a record third-quarter profit Thursday.
The Seattle-based air carrier posted a profit of $122.4 million, or $3.32 a share, for the three months ended Sept. 30, up nearly 40 percent from $87.6 million, or $2.46 a share, in the year-earlier period.
I will always be surprised by the fact that Alaska Air is based in Seattle, Washington. It’s a surprise that’s just two steps down from the one in connection with the name of Salt Lake City’s professional basketball team.
Why shouldn’t a company that started by flying people to Alaska be called Alaska Air? Maybe if they were New York Air then that would be confusing.
And calling the team “The Jazz” made a lot of sense when it was in New Orleans.
SLC actually has two professional sports teams, both improbably named. Is Real Salt Lake any less laughable than “the Jazz”?
Aren’t you aware that Seattle is Alaska’s largest city? One thing that baffles me though, is we don’t seen any ads for Alaska politics.
lots of lakes in L.A. too
I will always be surprised by the price of a one person round trip ticket from Seattle to Alaska. Damn, 3 people could fly round trip Seattle to Florida for the price of a one person ticket to Alaska.
@3 When RSL won the championship in the Sounders’ stadium last year I was there celebrating. Hahah.
@5 And trolleys to Dodge.
The reason it costs so much to fly to Alaska from Seattle is that Alaska Airlines has a virtual monopoly on flights up there (I think the only city that has service by other airlines is Anchorage). Since so many communities up there are dependent on planes or ferries to travel to/from them, Alaska Airlines can charge almost anything it wants.
@7 grats.
I don’t know who started the whole “Seattle is the largest city in Alaska” business, but it’s ridiculous. Anchorage is twice as far as LA by car. Alaska has a fifth of the population of the Seattle metro area- if anything, that state is a suburb of us.
AK is connected to the world through Seattle. Most of the design and engineering of their buildings comes from here. Almost all of their goods comes through our port – from concrete to build their ugly government buildings to every bite of food short of raindeer. Have a medical problem in Sitka? You’ll be on a very expensive express flight to a Seattle hospital.
I asked a business associate in Ketchikan once about attending a meeting in nearby Prince George BC. He said it would be far easier for me to fly there, since the only flights would be via Seattle.
The fact is nobody* lives in Alaska, so it makes little sense to locate a business there.
* Rough approximation based on people per square foot. Imagine just the population of Seattle proper, but spread out over a land mass twice the size of Texas. Their density is 0.015% of ours**, or roughly zero.
** Ok, I’m comparing AK to Seattle, not WA. But nobody lives in WA either.
One time I flew Delta, and I don’t give a fuck what their price is in the future, if I have to pay another $50 to fly anything but Delta I will, but usually Alaska is only a few bucks cheaper, and don’t suck. I flew alaska way back in the day and they were nothing but what I expected.