All photos done by Tad Carlson/NYCAviation – Click any for larger view.

Today Seattle welcomed Alaska Air Cargo’s Boeing 737-400 Combi (N764AS), containing 12 tons of Copper River Salmon, which is a favorite of fish connoisseurs.

One lucky fish was donated by Ocean Beauty Seafood to be cooked up for Alaska Airline’s second annual Copper Chef Cook Off Competition. The large fish was carried off the plane by the captain and in the open market it would be worth about $1000.

Three Seattle area restaurants, Anthony’s, Elliott’s Oyster House and SkyCity at the Needle, did their best to wow the VIP judges. At the judging table were Jay Buhner, Seattle Mariner Hall of Famer, Mike Fourtner, deckhand on the F/V Time Bandit on the Discovery Channel’s ’œThe Deadliest Catch’ and Joe Sprague, Alaska Airlines’ vice president of marketing.

Local Seattle celebrity John Curley provided humor and commentary while the cooks had 30 minutes to cook their best salmon. Although all three restaurants created delicious dishes for the judges and guests, Anthony’s held on to their title as Best Copper Chef of 2011.

The three recipes prepared for the Copper Chef Cook-off are available to download on Alaska’s website and fish lovers are encouraged to share their own favorite salmon recipes on Twitter, using the hashtag #CRsalmon.

Along with Alaska employees and invited media, Alaska MVP members who donated 75,000 miles to the Make-a-Wish foundation were invited to celebrate the arrival of the salmon and get a taste of each recipe.

Alaska Airlines is no stranger to flying seafood. Last year, they flew more than 22 million pounds of Alaskan seafood to the continental US, including almost 350 tons of Copper River Salmon.

“We’re proud to bring this prized, wild Copper River salmon to the Lower 48 and points beyond,” said Joe Sprague, Alaska Airlines’ vice president of marketing. “With enhanced food quality procedures and additional flights to support the Alaska seafood industry, we are going the extra mile to deliver fresh seafood throughout the country.”

This story was a joint effort between AirlineReporter.com and NYCAviation.com

 

General Aviation Day at Paine Field is back! What an amazing and great event celebrating aviation. People from all over will fly and drive in to share their love of flight.

The flyer above gives you most details, but this is a great family event, since it is FREE. Even though seeing all the aircraft is wonderful, I think the best part of the event are all the airplane owners who volunteer their time and gas to fly kids via the Young Eagle Flight program.

I heard that Boeing will have  747 DreamLifter for people to get close to, so that should be a nice treat.

Sadly, I am going to be out of town on Saturday. If you are going, take some photos and/or videos and email them to me da***@*************er.com and I will share them!

One of Allegiant Air's Boeing 757s (N902NV) at Everett, WA.

One of Allegiant Air's Boeing 757s (N902NV) at Everett, WA.

Allegiant Air, based in Las Vegas, is one of those wildcard airlines. One can never really know what they might do next and that keeps things very exciting. At a recent Low-Cost Airlines World Conference, Allegiant President Andrew Levy talked about the future of the airline, which might include international destinations and a loyalty program.

According to Aviation Week, Levy is “very excited” about the posibility of international growth. Allegiant is looking at the possibility of adding flights to Mexico and Canada via Las Vegas and Orlando.

Allegiant hopes to have a fleet of six Boeing 757s to supplement their fleet of MD-80 aircraft by the end of 2012. The airline has already announced the desire to start flights to Hawaii and Levy has noted that the aircraft would have the range to fly from Las Vegas to the northern area of South America. The Boeing 757s could also be used to fly to Mexico and add capacity on domestic routes.

It appears that Allegiant could see a use for more than just six Boeing 757s. ’œIf it’s as good an asset as we think it’s going to be for our network, we’ll certainly be buying a lot more,’ Levy stated at the conference. Levy will not yet estimate a number, noting that Allegiant doesn’t know how successful the six they already have will be.

When asked about the timeline of getting more aircraft and the additional routes, an Allegiant spokesperson stated they are “targeting” Hawaii for 2012, but there are no specific timelines for the international routes.

Levy also announced the airline is looking into a loyalty program, but it will be one not like other airlines. Instead of rewarding customers for the number of flights or miles flown, it would create loyalty for the entire Allegiant brand; online packages, hotels, rental cars, etc. ’œWe don’t need a loyalty program to get people to buy our air,’ Levy stated. ’œIf you’re in Des Moines, Iowa, and you want to go to Vegas, you’re going to buy our air. What we want you to do is buy the hotel, the car and maybe one day buy hotels in places that we don’t even fly.’

Allegiant is breaking the Ultra-Low Cost carrier mold of only having one aircraft type and looking to fly some longer international routes. I can’t wait to see what this little airline from Nevada might be able to

Our Airline Boeing 737-300 (VH-INU)

Our Airline Boeing 737-300 (VH-INU)

Whose airline? Our Airline. I feel there has to be some Abbott and Costello like joke in this airline’s name somewhere.

Our Airline was founded in 1970 as Air Nauru using a chartered Dassault Falcon 20. Due to their initial success, the airline started schedule flights in 1972 using a Fokker F28

In 2006, the airline had a name change to Our Airline during their relaunch in October of that year. The airline is based at Nauru International Airport and today has a fleet of only two Boeing 737-300s. On top of operating scheduled services, the airline also wet leases their 737s to Norfolk Air, Air Kiribati and other cargo and charter services.

The livery looks clean and it works. I only wish they might have used a different font type, since it is a little too wavy for my taste.

Image: Sheba_Also