Description
Alaska Air Group is an American airline holding company based in SeaTac, Washington, United States. The group owns two certificated airlines, Alaska Airlines, a mainline carrier, and Horizon Air, a regional carrier.
Alaska Airlines in turn wholly owns an aircraft ground handling company, McGee Air Services.
History
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 (12,224 at Alaska Airlines, 3,616 at Horizon Air, and 3,252 at Virgin America) 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.
On December 3, 2023, Alaska Air Group announced that it planned to purchase Hawaiian Airlines in a deal worth approximately $1.9 billion. The deal, if approved by regulators, would retain both Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines as separate brands.
