Alaska Airlines CEO: No small cities face axe – yet

Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci is confident that the carrier will continue serving all of the small cities in its network for the foreseeable future, despite a worsening shortage of captains at its regional affiliates. “I see the problem getting worse, not better,” Minicucci said referring to the pilot shortage in an interview Wednesday with Airline Weekly in Washington, D.C. Asked whether that meant Alaska could end service to some of the small cities in its network — many where it is the only air connection to the outside world — he said: “Right now, no. Not in the short term.” That’s generally good news for all the small cities Alaska serves. The airline, thanks to its geography, is the sole major carrier in many small Pacific Northwest and state of Alaska markets, including Kotzebue and Wrangell, Alaska, Pullman-Moscow serving northern Idaho and eastern Washington, and Yakima, Wash., to name a few. “What I’m worried about is next year and the year after that,” Minicucci concluded on small city air service, and again pointed to the shortage of captains at regional airlines. Alaska’s wholly-owned regional subsidiary, Horizon Air, faces elevated pilot attrition rates that, while not forcing it to park any aircraft as at some other airlines, does mean it is flying planes at lower utilization levels than before the pandemic. Alaska also contracts SkyWest Airlines for some of its regional flying. Minicucci did not comment of the Utah-based carrier’s plan to launch a schedule charter operator, SkyWest Charter, to continue serving federally subsidized communities.<br/>