Though there will be plenty of good news for Alaska Air Group’s stockholders when they meet tomorrow for their annual meeting, the flight attendants who believe they share in that success will be rallying outside Seattle’s Bell Harbor Conference Center for better pay. Alaska reported record profits in Q1 2013 — net profit of $44 million, or $0.62 per diluted share in a traditionally weak quarter — and recently was ranked “highest in airline customer satisfaction among traditional network carriers,” by J.D. Power and Associates, for the sixth straight year.
But though Alaska was a 2011 On-Time Performance winner, the company has not been able to land a contract with its flight attendants for the past 18 months (pilot negotiations have been moving briskly in contrast). Earlier this May, due to contract talks stalling, the flight attendants turned to mediation. “For the last three contracts, flight attendants responded to management’s plea to keep costs low while the airline created a winning strategy,” said Jeffrey Peterson, Association of Flight Attendants president at Alaska Airlines. “Our wages continue to fall below inflation and behind those of our peers in the industry.” (Here’s a pdf of what the AFA is negotiating.)
That’s exactly right: part of the way Alaska could increase profits by at least 17 percent the past four quarters is by keeping a lid on the salaries of its 3,100 flight attendants. Every quarter that the company doesn’t sign a new contract represents another quarter they can surprise analysts.
In other news, last Friday Alaska Air Cargo flew in their first shipment of this year’s Copper River salmon run: 24,600 pounds of mostly sockeye. The cargo planes deliver Copper River salmon from Ocean Beauty Seafoods, Trident Seafoods, and Copper River Seafoods throughout a 95-city network. “In many cases,” said Betsy Bacon, managing director of Alaska Air Cargo, they’re delivered “within 24 hours after the fish is caught.”
John Howie, executive chef at Seattle’s Seastar, won the Copper Chef Cook-Off this year, besting previous champion Pat Donahue, executive chef at Anthony’s Restaurants — at least, according to a panel of judges that included Jay Buhner; Mike Fourtner, deckhand on Deadliest Catch‘s crabber Time Bandit; Chief Master Sgt. Tony Mack, the 446th AW command chief from JBLM; and Jeff Butler, Alaska Airlines’ vice president of customer service-airports and cargo.
