Alaska Air Group (Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air) (Seattle/Tacoma) reported first quarter net income, excluding special items, of $28.3 million, or $0.39 per diluted share, compared to net income of $29.5 million, or $0.40 per diluted share. This quarter’s results compare to a First Call mean estimate of $0.35 per share and represent the second-best first quarter result in the groups’s history.

The group also recorded net income under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) of $40.8 million, or $0.56 per diluted share, compared to net income of $74.2 million, or $1.01 per diluted share.

Top Copyright Photo: Michael B. Ing.

Alaska Airlines Slide Show: CLICK HERE

Horizon Air Slide Show: CLICK HERE

Bottom Copyright Photo: Nick Dean.

Alaska Air Group (Seattle/Tacoma) paid annual bonuses totaling $53.8 million today to nearly all of its 12,800 employees for exceeding the company’s 2011 operational and financial goals. The bonus of about 6.7 percent of annual pay, or more than three weeks pay for most workers, is in addition to $1,000 in bonuses, on average, that each employee earned last year for achieving monthly on-time and customer satisfaction targets. The combined monthly and annual bonuses amounted to nearly $72 million.

Nearly $33 million in annual bonuses — 61 percent of the total — is being paid to some 6,300 Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air employees in the Puget Sound area. Another $7.6 million is being paid to employees in the Portland, Ore., area while $5.3 million is going to workers throughout the state of Alaska.

Bonuses in Alaska Air Group’s Performance Based Pay Plan are determined by meeting specific company-wide goals for safety, customer satisfaction, cost control and profit that are approved annually by the board of directors. Annual bonuses have averaged 5 percent since the plan was formed in 2003.

Copyright Photo: Michael B. Ing.

Alaska Slide Show: CLICK HERE

Alaska Horizon Slide Show: CLICK HERE

Horizon Slide Show: CLICK HERE

The Alaska Air Group (Seattle/Tacoma) board of directors and Bill Ayer, chairman and chief executive officer, announced today that Ayer will retire as CEO of Air Group and its subsidiary carriers, Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, effective at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on May 15. Brad Tilden, a 21-year veteran at Air Group, will succeed Ayer as CEO of Air Group and the company’s two airlines and will remain as president of Alaska Airlines. Ayer will continue to serve as chairman of the board.

Ayer, 57, has spent three decades at Air Group, including 10 years as CEO. In addition to serving as chairman of Air Group and its subsidiary boards, he will participate as a member of the NextGen Advisory Committee, a panel of aviation industry leaders who are working with the FAA to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system and improve airport and airspace efficiency.

Tilden, who is 51, joined Alaska Airlines from Price Waterhouse in 1991. He was promoted to Air Group’s chief financial officer in 2000, to executive vice president – planning and finance in 2007, and to president of Alaska Airlines in 2008. As president, Tilden has overseen the nation’s seventh-largest airline, with 9,500 employees and 119 aircraft serving 61 destinations across the continental United States and in Alaska, Hawaii, Canada and Mexico.

In addition to serving on the Alaska Air Group board, Tilden is a director of Flow International Corp., Pacific Lutheran University and the Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts of America (where he will serve as council president beginning in March). He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Pacific Lutheran University and an MBA from the University of Washington and is a private pilot.

Ayer, also a private pilot, joined Horizon in 1982 and has served in a variety of marketing, planning and operational posts at the regional carrier and Alaska Airlines. He was appointed CEO of Air Group and Alaska Airlines in 2002, succeeding John F. Kelly, and became chairman in 2003. Ayer, who is joining the University of Washington Board of Regents, is chairman of the Puget Energy board, serves on the UW Foster School of Business Advisory Board, and is a director of Angel Flight West and the Museum of Flight in Seattle.