Category: Alaska News

An injunction gave Mark Mitchell and other high school class of 2022 athletes a fifth year in the fall.

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The Alaska Legislature ended the first week of its third special session on the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline with no action.

The session is for lawmakers to consider a property tax break to incentivize the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who called the session and set the agenda, has yet to propose legislation for lawmakers to work on. 

The state House failed to pass a compromise bill earlier this month, during the second special session of 2026, after Dunleavy threatened to veto it. 

The governor has said he is holding closed-door negotiations to try to draft an alternative, but his office has released no details about those discussions.

Two members of the House and one member of the Senate held perfunctory “technical sessions” on Friday. 

Article II, Section 10 of the state constitution requires regular meetings unless lawmakers approve a resolution allowing a different schedule.

The House has scheduled another technical session for Monday morning, and the Senate has scheduled one for Tuesday morning.

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The National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday released the final report for the February 6, 2025, accident involving Bering Air flight 445 that killed all 10 people on board.

While the NTSB’s report identifies airspeed and load issues as the main causes of the crash, the Alaska aviation community is still reeling over how it could have happened with such a well-trained pilot from a company with an excellent safety record.

The Board determined the crash was caused by the pilot’s inadequate airspeed management and operation above gross weight. It also faulted the company for allowing overweight operations and the Federal Aviation Administration for inadequate oversight.

The Board’s team was composed primarily of investigators from outside the Alaska region, which is not uncommon when an accident is considered significant. But their lack of familiarity with the state’s aviation industry was evident in interviews as they sought to understand daily operations in rural Alaska. They also did not know about Bering Air’s unique reputation as, statistically, one of the safest small commuters in state history.

While Alaska has had a challenging flight safety record for decades, that was not the case with Bering Air  prior to this accident. That is what has made the crash of flight 445 so shocking to the aviation community here, and has led it to more nuanced scrutiny into the cause of this crash. 

Airspeed

That February afternoon, Flight 445 departed Unalakleet for Nome at 2:37 p.m. in a Cessna Caravan. Pilot Chad Antill was not an inexperienced pilot, but he wasn’t a seasoned veteran either. He began flying for Bering Air in 2022 and had about 2,500 total hours of flight time with 1,060 hours in the Caravan — flight hours are incredibly subjective as a measure of experience and dependent on a variety of factors including the type of flying, type of aircraft and location. At 3:05 p.m. Nome reported light snow, broken ceiling at 2,700 ft, overcast ceiling at 5,500 ft, and visibility of 10 miles. An icing forecast issued at 1 p.m. noted constant moderate icing between 2,000 and 8,000 feet in the region. Trucks were active on the runway and taxiways to keep surfaces clear for landing aircraft.

Flight 445 initially proceeded without incident and at 3:11 p.m. the pilot contacted Anchorage Center while descending from 7,725 feet for Nome. At 3:13 p.m., according to data obtained after the accident from the onboard Garmin 1000 flight system, the aircraft was flying at 163 knots and 6,575 feet. The Anchorage controller notified Antill that Nome Flight Service was reporting the available runway was closed for 10 to 15 minutes for snow removal and he might want to slow a bit to “not get there too early.”

The aircraft’s speed then decreased to 152 knots; it was reduced even further to 111 knots two minutes later — below the required Caravan speed of 120 knots for known icing conditions. At 3:16 p.m., Anchorage cleared the flight to descend at pilot’s discretion and maintain 4,000 feet. Antill gave a “good readback” of the instructions to the controller. Then, in one minute, things get out of control. At 3:19 p.m., the air speed briefly climbed to 121 knots; the aircraft was entering a rapid descent — an extremely dangerous situation. The last data point from the Garmin 1000 was at 3:20 p.m. when it reported 200 feet and 52 knots. The wreckage was later found about 34 miles from Nome on the sea ice.

Weight

In its investigation, the NTSB used data from several sources, including the Garmin, to conclude that the flight was about 800 pounds overweight out of Unalakleet for standard operations and 1,000 pounds overweight for flight into known icing conditions. There are different weight standards for flight into known icing conditions. Based on the Garmin data, the agency also asserted that flights on five previous days, which involved pilots other than Antill, were also overweight. That information generated significant attention when released to the public earlier this year, effectively directing the conversation onto fuel weight. 

Weight can become a factor in conjunction with some other event or action. For example, if the aircraft is loaded improperly, as in the 2013 Soldotna accident, or if an aircraft suffers a mechanical failure, or encounters severe weather conditions. 

It’s tough for FAA inspectors to check the weight on flights — they would need reasonable cause to unload the plane. The air service bears the responsibility for every load as it is company employees who manage those loads. For the FAA, Garmin data is not easily available, and absent reasonable cause an inspector cannot demand a company unload and weigh everything onboard an aircraft. This would be particularly onerous in Alaska where combinations of passengers, freight and mail are common. How the FAA can accomplish load oversight, without being unduly invasive on daily operations, is a question the NTSB is not required to address but the FAA will likely puzzle over for some time. 

It is indisputable Antill was flying heavier than his flight manifests reflected on February 6. While the Garmin 1000 is not infallible, based on the fuel weight he ordered when he departed Nome that morning and standard fuel burn calculations for his flight from there to St. Michael’s and then on to Unalakleet and back to Nome, the aircraft was overweight.

However,it is the air speed in icing conditions that should command the most attention from the report. Understanding air speed, many Alaska pilots say, far more than weight, is how to prevent future accidents like flight 445.

Flying in icing conditions

The Caravan was equipped with an aircraft deicing system, the Tecalemit-Kilfrost-Sheepbridge Stokes, named for the three British companies that first invented the process in 1942. The system, which is used to prevent ice from adhering to, and consequently building up on, wing surfaces and the tail assembly, is not designed for prolonged flight in icing conditions. Instead, it is intended to protect the aircraft while the pilot exits them. According to the Cessna Caravan Aircraft Flight Manual, even with the TKS deicing system on, the minimum air speed when icing has been encountered is 120 knots. From 3:15 p.m. until the crash, flight 445 failed to maintain that air speed. 

In NTSB interviews with several Bering pilots, management and the company’s FAA-assigned Principal Operations Inspector, the question of minimum air speed in icing conditions came up repeatedly. In each instance, the response was that 120 knots was the minimum acceptable. Not only was 120 knots listed in the Caravan manual but also in Bering Air’s checklist, standard operating procedures and its cold weather training materials. As one pilot told investigators, “…120 is what is the minimum recommended by Cessna so obviously that’s the minimum that would be recommended by the company.” 

To try and understand why Antill remained in icing conditions even as the aircraft slowed down, the TKS deicing system was discussed frequently in interviews. The regularity of icing forecasts in large swaths of Alaska was also addressed, along with the need for pilot reports to confirm or refute forecast validity. As the company’s operations inspector explained to investigators in the report: “We have forecast weather issues. Big State. Broad Forecast. Lots of changing weather.”  

Absent a confirmation pilot report, pilots depart into forecasted but not yet confirmed icing conditions. The TKS deicing system was designed exactly for this sort of potential icing environment. But, according to Chris Magerkurth, a former engineering specialist with Cessna who had seventeen years with the company working on ice protection systems, pilot over-reliance on systems like TKS is a concern. “The systems are designed to provide brief encounters with icing, not to hold or fly around indefinitely in any icing conditions,” he explained to me. “A pilot has no idea what ice conditions they are in or how quickly those conditions can change. They need to ask for a higher or lower altitude and get out of it.”

It is possible that the prevalence of icing conditions in the Norton Sound area has led to a subtle perception of the TKS deicing system as more “anti-ice” than “escape from ice” among pilots there. Coupled with the fact that many Alaska companies fly single-pilot aircraft, over-reliance on equipment like TKS while in tough conditions might be happening. This is especially true among the current generation of pilots who learned to fly in cockpit environments that emphasize automation. If anything is to be taken from this accident, many pilot sources stress, Cessna’s mandate to escape icing as quickly as possible would be the primary message, regardless of the accessibility to TKS.

In its recommendations, the NTSB called for the FAA to develop certain “surveillance criteria” for small commuter or charter services, known as Part 135 companies, who experience what the Board describes as “rapid growth, increased complexity of operations, accidents and/or incidents,” etc. But as he discussed with investigators, Bering Air’s operations inspector was physically present in Nome one week of nearly every month and the company had not markedly altered its route structure in recent years, even after the bankruptcy of Ravn Air Group in 2020. 

Further, based on a review of the NTSB’s database, Bering has maintained for decades the safest record among any small commuter or charter service of similar size in the state. Prior to flight 445, Bering was involved in seventeen accidents in the previous thirty-five years with only two in the previous ten years. There were no fatalities and only one serious injury when a passenger intentionally walked into a spinning propeller. In comparison, the company with the worst record in the period, Hageland Aviation Services, had 43 accidents before it went out of business in 2020 as part of Ravn Air. There were 29 fatalities and seven serious injuries in those crashes, its last occurring three months before the company shutdown. As Bering’s operations inspector noted to investigators, the company did not exhibit “risk indicators.”  That is part of what made the crash of flight 445 so shocking. Simply put, Alaskans did not see this one coming. 

Unanswered questions

A well-trained pilot with a seemingly reasonable amount of experience and reputation, according to his co-workers, for conservative flying, departed Unalakleet overweight into forecasted moderate icing conditions. He flew directly across Norton Sound rather than choosing one of Bering’s approved shore routes. When asked to “slow down a bit” by Anchorage Center he did not respond that conditions made such a request unacceptable. When told minutes later to descend at his discretion he agreed rather than ask for an immediate altitude out of the ice. He never declared an emergency. There is no record of him contacting Nome Flight Service to ask the trucks to leave the runway so his landing would not be delayed, which is a common request in such situations in Alaska. Finally, for several minutes his air speed steadily decreased and he appears to have done little to stop it, or to alert anyone that he was in trouble.

For people familiar with the aviation industry in Alaska, this behavior is troubling and frustrating to contemplate. In its recommendations the NTSB said nothing about further training in icing conditions. It is unclear what more could have been done to stress the importance of 120 knots in the Cessna Caravan. 

Magerkurth was part of the group that certified various anti-ice and deicing equipment over the years, including on the Cessna Caravan, and his thinking is quite straightforward: “The minimum icing air speed as set by the manufacturer is based on the changes in aerodynamic characteristics of the airframe such as drag created by various ice shape configurations,” he explained. “The company tests worst case scenarios based on the continuous maximum and intermittent maximum icing envelopes developed in federal regulations. When it sets an air speed limit, it is the result of that research.”

“The limit,” he said, “cannot be ignored.”

Editor’s note: The author worked with the principal operations inspector, who is a source in this story, at Larry’s Flying Service in Fairbanks in the 1990s.

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State epidemiologists are warning that the measles virus has been detected in Anchorage wastewater samples collected in early July, though no cases have been identified in Alaska recently. 

The state was first notified on July 22 that samples detected measles virus RNA in Anchorage wastewater, though testing indicated that the concentration was “very low,” according to a state public health alert issued July 27. 

The Anchorage sewershed includes the city of Anchorage and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richards, but not Eagle River or Girdwood. 

People are not at risk of getting measles from the wastewater, as it spreads through respiratory transmission, according to the alert. 

The state recommends that medical providers keep an eye out for measles symptoms in any patient: including fever, cough, nasal swelling and irritation, and red or pink coloring in the eyes, particularly when the patient has been traveling recently. 

The United States is experiencing a record high measles outbreak. More cases have been reported in the last two years than in 2000 through 2024 combined. According to CDC data, the states hardest hit by outbreaks this year include Texas, Utah, Arizona, South Carolina, Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania. 

Measles was officially eliminated from the United States in 2000, meaning there were no cases of the virus spreading within the country and new cases had only been found when someone traveled abroad and returned. But, as vaccination rates have dropped, and global measles cases have risen, the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. has also risen. 

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Former Alaska State Sen. Tom Begich stopped in Haines this week as he campaigns back and forth across the state. The 65-year old Democrat currently leads the race to be the state’s next governor, according to a range of polls. While in Haines, he competed in the singer-songwriter contest at the Southeast Alaska State Fair. He also spoke to CVN reporter Will Steinfeld about a range of issues, including education, state-funded infrastructure, tribal sovereignty and resource development. 

You’ve been traveling all over the state. What’s the scope of the concerns you’ve been hearing from people? Is it a lot of local issues, or are there consistent big picture issues you’re hearing about?

It’s a little bit of both. But mostly it’s been two main issues. They talk about education and whether or not it will ever be fully funded again, and there’s a real feeling that we’ve allowed our education system to really fall apart. You know, we’re 48, 49th in the nation now, depending on which categorical area you’re looking at,

Then, when we talk about affordability, energy costs are outrageous. Where they have been able to shift to renewables, it’s lowered costs significantly, but there has been a real pullback at the federal level for that renewable funding, and I think the state has to pick up the slack there.

On education, do you hear from people that it’s a money issue, that communities just need more funds to work with?

You hear that, but it’s a quality issue too… . How do you make a more stable education system? I’ve proposed some ways that we can do that. Most school districts aren’t able to recruit new teachers because they don’t know their budgets until, in this case, we don’t even know them today, and we’re already in the new fiscal year for these school districts. I’ve proposed taking the education budget as a separate component out of the operating budget, and placing it so that we address it in the first 60 days (of the legislative session). That’s a process issue, not a money issue. 

But the second piece to that is a money issue. I wouldn’t have vetoed the pension plan that the bipartisan majorities passed in the Senate and the House. We’re the only state in the union that doesn’t give what we call a defined benefit of pension plan to teachers. So when our teachers reach their peak teaching ability after four or five years, they’ve been educators in Alaska, they can compete for jobs in 49 other states that will give them a pension plan. So we lose them, and we know that because we’ve actually studied that. 

To fully fund education, you’re probably looking at somewhere around an additional $185 million to $215 million a year. I have a plan for how you get there and how you can pay for that. And I don’t think any other candidate for governor does have a fiscal plan that is as detailed as mine is. 

If your fiscal plan can’t deliver that new revenue in year one or two, or at all, do you see education as a priority enough to take from other pools of funding?

Well I think you can have a fiscal plan that gets there in year one, and I’ll talk about that in a second. But it is a priority, and we will find the funding for it because it must happen. A failed school system does not provide opportunity for young people. And if you’re looking to have kids here, you don’t want to raise them in a place that doesn’t provide an education. I simply won’t stand for it, and I don’t think most Alaskans will either anymore. So how do we get there? 

This governor twice vetoed the internet fee, which would, like 36 other states, simply put the international internet companies into our corporate tax code. 

Number two, we must fix what’s called the S-Corp exception. This has allowed over 100 million in tax revenue we used to get from BP, British Petroleum, to fall off our books immediately, and it fell off our books because an S-Corp, Hilcorp, bought their assets. That was never the intent of the S-Corp law. It was to support small businesses. Just fixing that is worth between $100 million and $150 million annually, according to our own state Senate Resources Committee.

Finally getting rid of the tax credits on Prudhoe, Kuparak, and Alpine, the three legacy fields on Prudhoe. You don’t provide tax credits to a field that’s been producing for 20, 30, or 40 years. You provide it for new development. That will produce between $200 and $250 million annually into our state budget. 

The first two have or nearly have consensus already. If we get the third one, you’re talking about $400 million a year we’re not collecting today. That is more than enough to pay for that education and also do some of the other issues that have come up around retrofitting for energy efficiency or ensuring that we’re looking at our healthcare and housing issues in a manner that will actually reach Alaskans. 

People seem to be afraid to talk about the tax credit issue. They’ll talk about the S-Corp and they’ll talk about the internet fee, but they’re all afraid to talk about getting our fair share from the oil industry. Just remember, those are our resources, and our Constitution demands that we create maximum value from the production of our resources. We should do that because ultimately, in the end, those resources aren’t going to be there forever.

I have a slightly different question for you, a more local question. Week to week, I hear a lot of people bring up the old lumber mills pretty frequently: this idea of a search for what kind of industry is next that will bring some kind of local employment base. Do you think in these kinds of Southeast towns, the state has some role to play in looking for a next option? Do you think there is a next option?

There’s always a next option. You know, I look back in the 80s, we had pulp mills in Sitka and Ketchikan that were really the mainstays of both communities. In Sitka,  what they did was they began a multi-year plan to figure out how they could expand tourism, how they could expand the university, how they could expand their arts community, and they also developed and supported small businesses. Sitka ended up thriving, being a diversified community that had all these different sectors that were then represented. 

That requires comprehensive community planning. The state could lead that effort with the community, but only if the community wants that effort. The administration at the state level is really not very interested in that. I am. I cut my teeth on community organizing, community development, whether it was strategic planning in the Northwest Arctic Borough or working with school districts like the Upan School District in Western Alaska. That’s the same kind of skill set I want to bring to bear as governor.

I think this community ought to be a thriving community and it doesn’t have to be built on whether or not you’re cutting timber everywhere. In fact, we have a law in the books. It’s a carbon credit bill. Sealaska took 117,000 acres, sold carbon credits, and are making $100 million a year. I was up in Klukwan talking to folks there, one of the things we talked about was, instead of building a bridge to that state land and cutting timber on that land, maybe building a road to mines that might not be built, what if we instead carbon credited that state land, producing millions of dollars a year that we could use to help Haines plan for its future, and for the village to do the same thing. Now you’re protecting commercial fishing grounds, you’re protecting subsistence hunting and fishing habitat, and you’re making income in doing so. And that income could be used to reimagine what this community could be like

Recently the CEO of Vizsla Copper, the Palmer Project owner, said his company was working with the state to fund work on a new industrial port facility in Haines. We don’t know exactly what it looks like yet…

Whoa whoa. So he’s telling you about this, but the community doesn’t know anything about it?

The community didn’t know about it, as far as I know, until he said this. 

Let me just say this again. I don’t know whether y’all support that dock or not, but not on my watch. Nothing moves forward in a community without the community identifying what it wants to do. The state does not have a role in bypassing community interests, ever. That has been the role of this administration, to pick a project and to impose that project, whether a community wants it or not. I’d rather have that debate and that discussion in the community and decide what you guys want to do. Now, if you want to work with them and do a dock, that’s your decision. I’m going to be intervening to say, do you have a meaningful place at the table, or are they just shining you on?

How does the public process change to facilitate that?

If I were governor and somebody came to me and said, hey, I got a great idea for Haines, my first question would be, how does the community feel about it? In this case, it sounds like the answer would be, well, I haven’t talked to them yet. I would say, “well, you come back to me after you’ve talked to the community, and then let me go talk to the city manager and the mayor and ask what they’re thinking.”

Are there specific ways you could codify that so that at an agency level, even if people aren’t coming to your desk, that would still be the case?

Yeah, you could even do it by executive order. I was up in Fairbanks, and a bunch of community members from Esther Dome came up to talk to me because there’s a mining operation happening up there, and they didn’t want it. I said, what was the public process? Well, there wasn’t one. They didn’t even know how it had occurred. That can’t happen. The Ambler Road. People talk about that all the time. You know there are 88 resolutions of villages opposing the Ambler Road. You probably didn’t know that, because the governor has used AIDEA as a tool to push that road through without even talking to communities that are going to be directly impacted by it. And that, to me, is the wrong approach. Government should never have the approach of imposing on a community a development it doesn’t want. 

How do you think the state’s dialogue with the borough of Haines, for example, or the general population of Haines, should differ from consultation with local tribes? Should it be different?

I think there shouldn’t be a difference in the long run. We have, by statute, said we recognize local tribes. I want to take that a step further and ensure that we’re doing full recognition of our tribes because our tribes have sovereignty. We never conquered them here. There’s no treaty. There’s an understanding that they have some sovereign power, and so that relationship should be fraternal, not paternal. What I mean by that is, the government works with its municipalities to try to find solutions. Government does have the power to impose some decisions, eminent domain, and things like that. I want to be sure that our discussions with tribes are on a fraternal relationship basis: not, “nice, thank you for your opinion. We’re going to do this anyway.”

I guess beyond general principles, do you think that in terms of the process, there’s a difference between dealing with a municipality and dealing with a sovereign government?

There is, and part of that difference is that a sovereign government has a lot more authority than a municipality has. How we negotiate that and how we make that look will be something we work out with sovereign governments on a regular basis. 

(The Chilkat Valley News) has been following the federal Department of the Interior policy going back and forth on the status of allotment land, like in Eklutna. I wish I was more educated on the topic, but it seems like the Department of Law and the state have been relatively consistent across recent administrations on how the state views state sovereignty over allotment land and tribal land. Do you feel like there’s a change of direction to be had?

I don’t share that view. It will be a near reversal of direction. I look at this very, very differently. I think this administration has created an antagonistic relationship with a fifth of our population, and I think that it reflects prior administrations as well. I said there’s an exception in the Walker-Mallott administration that was much friendlier, but not since the Knowles administration have we had a strong working relationship outside of Walker’s administration with tribes. In fact, prior to that, we didn’t even fully understand tribes until the Clinton administration recognized our tribes up here. Prior to that, it was all about the corporations, and there were (Indian Reorganization Act) entities that were demanding recognition. 

Everyone should be treated in a manner that is respectful to their existence. You’re not threatening subsistence rights all the time because you believe that a particular sport fishing organization is more important than people who’ve lived here for 10,000 years. I don’t buy that, and what I want to do is find those collaborative places we can work that will preserve subsistence preference, while at the same time ensuring we have a commercial fishing industry here, and the two are compatible. 

How deep are you into the marine highway? Like, are you thinking at the level of we should have more day boats, should invest in mainliners, that kind of planning? Are you more thinking about the broader process of ‘let’s change how the board is composed and how we fund the system?’

I want professionals who understand the board, not a bunch of DOT bureaucrats determining how that board, how that marine highway system is run. I want us to stop looking at it as, boy, we don’t make enough money off the people on the ferry system to justify it. You don’t make enough money on the Glenn Highway either. In fact, you make no money on the Glenn Highway. Why do our students pay $60,000 (for transportation) in sports leagues in Southeast because they don’t know if they’re going to have regular ferry service, so they have to have a backup plan with Seaplanes? You know, this is stuff that the community deserves to get fair treatment on. If you have a board that’s coming from these communities, you will be able to deal with these issues on a regular basis. More importantly, if you have that $200 million to deal with those deferred maintenance pieces — you have a lot more than that deferred maintenance, but that’s a starting point — It jumpstarts your ability to be successful. If you have bonding authority, that means you can be looking at a 10- or 20-year plan and doing replacement and envisioning what that system looks like. 

Do you feel like legislators from other parts of the state would go for extensive bonding for the marine highway system? Like, do you have any indication that that’s possible?

I do. The revenue bond isn’t just for (the Marine Highway). The revenue bond would be a $850 million general obligation bond. $200 million would be for the marine highway system. $250 million would be for the deferred maintenance. Over $2 million for the University of Alaska. You’d have $200 million reserved for the major maintenance list and the maintenance and the school construction lists, and then you have $200 million for roads and bridges that are falling apart across the state. That’s $850 million. It’s not even a billion dollars. It’s a general obligation bond, which gives us a time period to pay it back over time, and that time period allows us to jumpstart every one of those areas. That fiscal plan I laid out earlier, coupled with using carbon credits appropriately and some of the other ideas that are out there, could produce enough income for the state of Alaska to allow us to finally have a capital budget that we can count on every year. These are all part of the planning process that I’m looking at. I want to see a state that is not just reflecting on the past, but looking to the future. And I think we can get there. I’m sure we can get there.

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Alaska Airlines will add four more converted Boeing 737-800 freighters to its fleet, raising to nine the number of all-cargo aircraft the company operates.

The additional freighters will be dedicated to serving Alaska and Hawai’i, not any specific route, Tim Thompson, the company’s director of public relations, said in an email July 22.

Alaska operates a weekly cargo flight into Petersburg on Wednesdays, using a Boeing 737-700, which is slightly smaller than the 800 series but capable of carrying about 40,000 pounds in cargo containers lined up where the seats would be on a passenger aircraft.

The weekly flight is scheduled to leave Seattle every Thursday afternoon, arriving in Wrangell that evening after stops to drop off and pick up freight in Ketchikan, Sitka and Juneau.

Petersburg also is scheduled for a weekly cargo flight, on Wednesdays.

The newest additions to the airline’s freighter fleet – scheduled for delivery next year, on long-term leases – could be used anywhere on Alaska’s route system when heavier loads demand an additional flight, Thompson said.

“Adding new freighters provides greater cargo capacity and allows us to add supplemental service as needed to communities,” he said.

The airline also moves cargo in the belly of its daily passenger flights in and out of Petersburg, but space is limited, particularly for larger items or when passenger loads are heavy.

Alaska Air Group owns and operates Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, which it took over in 2024, maintaining a fleet of more than 300 passenger jets, with capacity ranging from 124 passengers to 300 seats on the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners it flies on its new international routes.

The two airlines fly a total of 15 freighters, of which 10 are operated by Hawaiian Airlines.

Alaska Air Group’s regional carrier, Horizon Airlines, operates 92 of its 76-passenger planes.

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