Exceptional Expansion: Alaska Airlines takes new employees, new assets, and a new look in stride.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: Transportation

I was silting with Alaska Airlines Manager of External Affairs Tim Thompson when Alaska Airlines Regional Vice President-Alaska Marilyn Romano walked into our May 1 interview, offering me a cookie and a smile. The recorder happened to already be running, capturing just one of the thousands of small interactions thai have built the airline's service-oriented reputation. "It's friendly, genuine service, even when we don't know we're on the record," Romano laughs.

'Red to Blue'

Thompson was updating me on Alaska Airlines' newest milestone in the ongoing integration of its acquired Virgin America assets. On The night of April 24, Thompson was al LAX and Romano was al Sea'fac, lending their aid as spokespersons as Alaska Airlines officially transitioned from two systems to one. "Everything thai passengers see now is Alaska Airlines: at twenty-nine airports it was an overnight changeover, transitioning from Virgin America red to Alaska Airlines blue,'' Thompson says. All flights are now official Alaska Airlines flights, booked through the company's website and app, and operated by Alaska Airline- personnel. "It was great in that il was jus! a regular day in our operation," Thompson says, "and that's the way it should have been."

Romano adds, "You want [the transition] In be .1 non event... It's just seamless I heir system kind of goes away, and everything that was being done on the Virgin America side just automatically flows as Alaska Airlines. It was a great non-event for everybody." The command center organized for the transition was officially shut down on April 30, after several days (including a busy weekend) of smooth operations and non-issues.

"I give a lot of credit to our people," she continues. "Tim and I really played small roles at the last minute... but we're talking months and months of a core team going through every possible scenario--what happens if the computer system malfunctions, what happens if a boarding pass doesn't show up on someone's phone--and slowly drawing down the Virgin America system over time so that people didn't even know it was happening."

Thompson says this switchover puts the airline at about 75 percent integration. While all branding at the airports has switched "from red to blue," the majority of Virgin America planes still need rebranded exteriors and refurbished interiors to match the rest of Alaska Airlines' fleet. This process is scheduled to take place over the next eighteen months as planes are pulled from service as part of their regular maintenance cycle.

In addition, Alaska Airlines is refurbishing a number of their Boeing planes to have the...