Alaska Air Group was formed in 1985 as a holding company for Alaska Airlines, and a year later it acquired Horizon Air and Jet America Airlines. Jet America Airlines was merged into Alaska Airlines in 1987. In 2011, Alaska Air Group replaced the AMR Corporation in the Dow Jones Transportation Average following AMR's filing for bankruptcy. On March 29, 2016 Alaska Airlines announced that it would form a wholly owned subsidiary called McGee Air Services, a dedicated airline services company. McGee competes with other companies to provide ground handling, aircraft cleaning and wheelchair services to Alaska Airlines. On April 4, 2016, Alaska Air Group announced plans to acquire Virgin America, pending approval from US government regulators and Virgin America shareholders; the acquisition was completed on December 14, 2016. The total price was approximately $2.6 billion. Until 2018, Alaska Air Group continued to operate Alaska Airlines and Virgin America as separate airlines and continued to honor both Alaska's Mileage Plan and Virgin America's Elevate loyalty programs. Following the acquisition of Virgin America, the actual number of Alaska Air Group employees had increased from 15,143 at the end of 2015 to 19,112 by the end of 2016. On March 22, 2017 the company announced that Alaska Air Group would merge Virgin America and Alaska Airlines, with the combined airline to operate under the Alaska Airlines brand. The merger was largely completed on April 25, 2018 and the Virgin America brand was fully retired by June 2, 2019.
Corporate affairs
Business trends
The key trends for Alaska Air Group over recent years are shown below :
The Alaska Air Group headquarters is located at 19300 International Boulevard, SeaTac, Washington, United States. On May 3, 2018 Alaska Airlines unveiled plans to construct a 128,000-square-foot building near Sea-Tac Airport to provide office space for its growing workforce. The new building will be across the street from Alaska's Corporate Headquarters and adjacent to its Flight Training Center. Construction was expected to be completed by early 2020.
Operations
Fleet
Alaska Air Group operates a mix of Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, and Embraer aircraft through its subsidiaries Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air. As of October 2017, Alaska Airlines' fleet consisted of 248 jet aircraft, and Horizon Air's fleet consisted of 41 turboprop and 16 jet aircraft, with the combined fleet under Alaska Air Group's management numbering 298 aircraft. Alaska Air Group has created a new branding identity for its Horizon Air subsidiary and other independently owned and separately directed affiliate regional airlines it chooses to contract to do regional flying business into markets too limited to be flown only on Alaska Airlines mainline equipment. Among the other airlines now sub-contracted to do additional flying for the Alaska Air Group is SkyWest, Inc.'s SkyWest Airlines, whose Bombardier CRJ700 and Embraer E175 aircraft dedicated to providing service for the Alaska Air Group are painted in a very similar manner to Alaska Horizon's. SkyWest's fleet however, is branded Alaska SkyWest to differentiate that airline's aircraft from those of Horizon Air.
