Marriage Minded
December 4, 2023
OVER THE WEEKEND, Alaska Airlines announced it will purchase Hawaiian Airlines for a reported $1.9 billion. If approved, the merger will form the nation’s fifth-largest carrier.
I find this interesting for a number of reasons — though probably not the ones most people are talking about. You can pop over to the other news and travel sites to learn about how this union does or doesn’t make sense, strategy-wise. You can read about loyalty programs, stock prices, and the alleged woes of yet more industry consolidation. My take is more fun:
Alaska and Hawaii. Our most geographically extreme states, numbers 49 and 50. One mammoth and frigid, the other small and tropical. They share a lot of traits: remoteness, mountains, indigenous people, whales.
Then we have the tails. Alaska and Hawaiian are the only carriers I know of whose liveries feature faces. One is a woman, the other a man. They stare longingly at one another across the vastness of the Pacific.
It’s romantic, no? They’ve been courting this merger all along, haven’t they? Thus we have a more literal marriage than are most mergers.
Both faces, by the way, are borrowed from real people.
The visage at Hawaiian is that of a woman named Leinaala Teruya Drummond. The former Miss Hawaii, she’s been up there since 1973. Ms. Drummon passed away in September at age 77.
Mr. Alaska’s history is a little less clear. What we know for sure is that he’s not Old Man Winter, Johnny Cash, an age-enhanced Che Guevara, or the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. He is an Eskimo. An Inuit. Though even the airline isn’t sure which one. They narrow him down to one of two native Alaskans: a reindeer herder from Kotzebue named Chester Seveck, or a man named Oliver Amouak, who appeared in an airline-sponsored “traveling stage show” in the 1950s.
Whichever is correct, he’s an iconic mascot and deserves to remain up there, in monochrome and smiling warmly in his parka.
For all of these reasons, I’m happy to hear that the plan is to keep both brands intact. Financially the carriers will be as one, but will operate independently under their own names. I suppose this makes sense. It’d be a little weird to have an entity called Alaska Airlines with a hub in Honolulu. Hawaii-Japan is one of Hawaiian’s busiest markets, and I imagine Japanese passengers in particular would find it baffling.
Of course, things like this have a way of changing. I wouldn’t be shocked if a year from now one of the two brands is subsumed or the carrier changes its name entirely. Pacific Airways, anyone?
Photo credits: Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines.
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25 Responses to “Marriage Minded”
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I kind of see your point about the two tail personages, but for me, when they faced each other on the tarmac at SEA, especially late at night, I saw the Inuit man looking longingly at the Hawaiian woman, only to be met with a withering “…no.”
Gosh, I would really hate for them to combine as “Pacific Airways”. Granted, Alaska now reaches far beyond Alaska and the states with easy and logical connections to it, but I’ve liked its identity as a regional carrier. I’m sure people with more connection than I have to Hawaiian feel the same way about it.
They’re not gazing AT each other. They’re looking away from each other. You need to flip the images.
Keep the tail for each, but put the “other” brand on the winglets to show partnership.
At one time there was a rumor that Hawaiian got fantastic deals by buying their entire fleet from one manufacturer. They would fly those airplanes until they needed a D-check – major maintenance. Then they would sell their old airplanes and get another great deal by buying an all-new fleet from the competing manufacturer.
“Roll me over in the clover”
Now there is only one daily HNL-ANC nonstop – otherwise it’s via SEA at double the travel time and much higher airfare
Maybe the merger will result in more HNL-ANC nonstops
Also HNL-Europe is an untapped market that goes right over ANC
This is a trivial point, but the way the tail fin photos are arranged in this article (Hawaiian on the left, Alaska on the right), they’re facing away from each other, suggesting a divorce rather than a marriage/merger.
No love for Aeromexico’s tail?
I hadn’t thought about that one. Funny because I’m a big fan of AeroMexico’s livery, including the tail (and despite its use of a “swoosh thing”).
>Financially the carriers will be as one, but will operate independently under their own names. I suppose this makes sense.
In more than just marketing. If I’m not mistaken, Hawaiian has a newish Airbus-heavy fleet with more on order, except for an aging batch of 717’s for inter-island work, whereas Alaska has, I think, fully implemented a strategic decision to phase out their several dozen ex Virgin America A320s and focus on B737’s and E-jets.
Fun Fact: Both territories became states in the same year – 1959.
I thought the name JetPac Airways had a nice ring…
As long as they don’t attempt to bring back that Alaskan/Hawaiin livery which looked like a severed head
If I recall correctly, for some time there was a Concorde with one side painted with the Singapore Airlines livery and the other side with the British Airways livery.
Hey Pat,
Always my pleasure to read your insightful and entertaining articles. You always have a unique perspective on the aviation industry .
Have a very Merry Christmas and safe New Year
While I too am happy that they are keeping both brands if they were to pick a new name either Western or Northwest Orient would be classic names that used to operate similar route maps to what the combined Alaska/Hawaiian will.
While I expect that the names won’t change it would not surprise me to see them hand off some of the inter-island routes to Horizon, probably with Hawaiian by Horizon livery similar to the current Alaskan by Horizon livery used on the mainland. So basically Horizon would fill the gap of the recently retired Ohana brand.
I hope they keep the liveries in tact individually and don’t try some weird mashup. We are already in a recession, near depression when it comes to decent schemes in this country.
Whatever they do, I hope they don’t replace their liveries with an insipid white fuselage with curvy things (or Generic Meaningless Swoosh Things as I think you call them). And definitely skip the web addresses and 800 phone numbers on the winglets and engine cowling!
My first thought was “how about a different face on either side of the tail?” Has this been done?
Fire and Ice Airlines
Or, being musically minded, Earth Wind Fire and Ice Transport
Western Pacific had Marge Simpson on the tail . . .
Norwegian air shuttle is another airline with faces on the tail. They have large black and white photos of prominent Norwegians called ‘Tail Fin Heroes’.
This is true. I’d forgotten about Norwegian. Now that their long-haul division is gone, we don’t see them in the U.S. anymore.
There’s also Air Serbia’s A330 with Nicola Tesla on the tail, but that’s more of a promotional thing and not their actual livery.
I’m holding out hope for an aircraft with one side in Alaska livery and the other in Hawaiian.
I think you might mean Senator Mike Gravel.