Alaska Airlines is a major United States airline headquartered in SeaTac, Washington, within the Seattle metropolitan area of the state of Washington. It is the fifth-largest airline in the United States when measured by fleet size, scheduled passengers carried, and number of destinations served. Alaska, together with its regional partners, operates a large domestic route network, primarily focused on connecting cities on the West Coast of the United States to over one hundred destinations in the contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Costa Rica, and Mexico. Alaska Airlines is not a member of any of the three major airline alliances. However, it has codeshare agreements with 17 airlines, including member airlines of oneworld, SkyTeam, Star Alliance, and unaffiliated airlines. Regional service is operated by sister airline Horizon Air and independent carrier SkyWest Airlines.
The company was founded in 1932 as McGee Airways, offering flights from Anchorage, Alaska. Today, most of airline's revenue and traffic comes from locations outside of Alaska, but the airline plays a major role in air transportation in the state. It operates many flights linking small towns to major transportation hubs and carries more passengers between Alaska and the contiguous United States than any other airline.
The airline operates its largest hub at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, and it also operates hubs in Anchorage, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco and focus cities at San Diego and San Jose.
As of 2018, the airline employs over 21,000 people and been ranked by J. D. Power and Associates as having the highest customer satisfaction of the traditional airlines for eleven consecutive years.Through the airline's parent company, Alaska Air Group, it is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol ALK and is part of the Dow Jones Transportation Average and the S&P 500 Index.