Alaska Airlines

This photo released by the National Transportation Safety Board shows a gaping hole where the paneled-over door had been at the fuselage plug area of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, Jan. 7, 2024Photo: National Transportation Safety Board (AP)Some travelers have become nervous about flying on Boeing planes after a string of highly publicized technical issues, including the door plug that simply fell off an Alaska Airlines flight at 16,000 feet back in January. But is there any way to easily check the type of plane you’ll be…

Photo: charles taylor / Shutterstock.com (Shutterstock)Google’s testing a new feature called “Talk to a Live Representative” that will contact businesses for you, navigate their phone trees, wait on hold, and then call you when a real human being is ready to chat. It could solve one of the more frustrating parts of dealing with corporations, and it brings us one step closer to a world where we all have our own weird little personal robots that to talk each other on our behalf. Apple Unveils Its iPhone 15 and Apple Watch…

Photo: Carlos Yudica (Shutterstock)Kayak has a lot of neat features that make traveling easy, including one that allows you to filter out a certain type of plane that ripped a little boy’s shirt off when its door blew out 16,000 feet in the air. That feature has seen a 15-fold increase in usage since Alaska Airlines’ Boeing 737 Max 9 gave the whole plane an unexpected window seat. Alex Winter on His Character in Destroy All Neighbors “Following the spike in usage, Kayak moved its filter up so it’s more prominent for…

Alaska Airlines and Boeing were hit with a lawsuit from four passengers who claimed they experienced “havoc, fear, trauma, severe and extreme distress” during a midair blowout aboard a flight earlier this month. The suit, filed in King County Superior Court in Washington state, is seeking damages for personal injuries after a door plug on a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft blew off while an Alaska Airlines flight was 16,000 feet above Oregon. The blowout left a gaping hole on the side of the plane, and the…

Photo: PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP (Getty Images)Boeing, one of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, has been in the news a lot lately but not in a good way. Safety incidents involving the company’s planes keep cropping up and this week brought yet another example of that unfortunate trend. On Thursday, an Atlas Air 747 cargo plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Florida after one of its engines burst into flames. Alex Winter on His Character in Destroy All Neighbors The plane, which took off from Miami en…

An artificial intelligence startup targeting air travel has raised $34 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz to more aggressively pursue deals with the Department of Defense.Air Space Intelligence Inc. has long sold its tools — which have been described as Waze for air travel — to commercial carriers including Alaska Airlines. The startup's marquee product, called Flyways, can help flight dispatchers pick routes for planes, taking into account factors like flight traffic, weather and airport conditions.…

Think about everything that happens as you arrive at an airport: the sensory overload of honking horns and police telling drivers to “keep moving” on the Departures level. Inside the ticketing area, you find anxious, luggage-toting travelers trying to make their way to the right line.Checking a bag? Head to a kiosk and enter your record locator.“Is this your trip?” the kiosk asks. (Yes.)“What do you need to do? Print a boarding pass? Check a bag? Change a seat? Purchase a mileage multiplier for $12.99? Hear about our…

Photo: Robin Guess / Shutterstock.com (Shutterstock)At last, we get to the budget airlines which, in fairness, are a bit more open about how terrible they are. Like its cheapo competitors, Allegiant offers you an impressively low price that nets you a seat on a plane, period. “We collect $110 from you at the end of your trip,” CEO Maurice J. Gallagher Jr., put it plainly in a 2009 interview. “If I tried to charge you $110 up front, you wouldn’t pay it. But if I sell you a $75 ticket and you self-select the rest, you…

Image: Bruce Bennett (Getty Images)Heading into Memorial Day weekend, preparedness for travel is essential, with the Transportation Security Administration telling ABC7 it expects to screen 10 million travelers between Friday and Monday.Airlines have reportedly fixed the problems that plagued travelers in 2022 which sparked surges of cancellations and delays, and 52,000 flight cancellations from June through August last year.Now airlines have hired about 30,000 workers and pilots and say they are more prepared for…

Alaska Airlines is flying forward into the future. Or, trying to do something like that at least. The company announced a suite of changes, soon to be coming to airport lobbies, in a Tuesday press release. Pentagon Employees Too Horny to Follow RulesFor one, Alaska Airlines has proclaimed there will be no more check-in kiosks. Instead, customers will have to check in prior to arriving at the airport on their phones, personal computers, or with a gate agent in person. iPads that print bag tags will supplant kiosks. This…