Two Horizon Air Q400's at Seattle
Last week I wrote a post about regional airlines and their legacy counterparts and explained how Horizon and Alaska Airline’s relationship is different. Some flights Alaska does pay Horizon to fly, called capacity purchase agreement (CPA), but other flights Horizon flies under its own brand and not being paid by any outside airlines.
Now, it looks like things are changing and Horizon Air will stop flying under its own brand and only fly under CPA. By January 1, 2011 all Horizon brand flights will be converted over to CPA under Alaska.
I spoke with Jen Boyer with Horizon Communications told me, “This is mainly behind the scenes change and do not anticipate any visible changes on the customer facing side.”
I asked if Horizon will be looking for other airlines to fly for and Boyer told me that Horizon will only be working with Alaska at this time and their main goal is to work on increasing profitability. When I asked if the Horizon brand might one day be changed to Alaska, Boyer told me, “the Horizon brand will be on the planes still and out there in the marketplace, no decision has been made to change that aspect at this time.”
Thanks to Dan Webb over at Things in the Sky for pointing out this story!
Pan Am Boeing 747-200 (N724PA) taken in May 1987
This Pan Am livery is not my favorite, but what an awesome photo from the past. Reader Dave H. was excited to share this photo he took from 1987 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Check out that DC-3 in the background.
More:
* Full sized version of image
* Other photos of aircraft on Airliners.net
What a beautiful morning to fly. United Express (with white nose - N708SK) CRJ-700 with a United Boeing 757 and moon in the background at SEA.
Back to Seattle Tacoma International Airport probably the last time before they install body scanners. Waiting for my United Express flight down to LAX for a special event that United holds for all their VIP passengers to connect and get feedback. Be sure to follow me on Twitter (what’s Twitter?) to see all the action.
I am excited to check out one of these events and also for the flight down to LAX. This will be my first flight on a Canadair Regional Jet 700. Being based in Seattle, there just aren’t that many regional jets that fly out of here and most of my connections with-in the US have been on larger aircraft.
I enjoyed flying on the ERJ-145 with its 2:1 layout and interested to check out this CRJ-700 with mostly 2:2 layout. The United Express flight is being flown by Skywest and according to SeatGuru.com, this plane should have First Class and United Economy Plus seats. I ended up with seat 6D which should be economy plus and I didn’t have to pay a dime more to get it. Should be a good flight.
The old and new combined livery for Continental and United Airlines
When United and Continental announced their new combined livery, a lot of people were not happy about the font used for “United.” Well, they must have heard, b/c they have changed the font and I like it!
From their merger site: “The new logo displays the combined company’s brand name in capital letters (UNITED) in a custom sans-serif font, joined with the global mark which has represented Continental’s brand image since 1991.”
This doesn’t help those that will miss the United tulip, but I think this is a good compromise for both brands.
New British Airways Boeing 747-8F at Paine Field
Late last night I got word from Jon Ostrower (aka FlightBlogger) that a nicely new painted Boeing 747-8 in British Airways colors was out in the open. So, this morning I headed over to Paine Field (KPAE) to check it out. I found her, but it wasn’t so easy. First she was parked a bit off from the rest of the Boeing 747-8’s and she is not in full British Airways livery. She is painted all white with a blue belly.
I was also able to check out the other Boeing 747-8’s sitting, waiting to take to the sky.
CHECK OUT ALL THE PICTURES
Update: BA has announced it is updating its fleet of Boeing 747-400F with new Boeing 747-8F’s and will be leasing them through Global Supply Systems, which is 49% owned by Atlas Air. On the press release BA states, “It has also been agreed that the new 747-8fs will be delivered in British Airways livery and incorporate the British Airways World Cargo logo.” Flight Global reports that they will be wet-leased for five years by GSS.