Alaska Airlines lands 120-foot king salmon

For years, thousands upon thousands of fish scooped from Alaskan waters have ridden quietly, anonymously, in the bellies of southbound Alaska Airlines jets.

You'd think all those frequent fliers would have earned an upgrade.

Now, though they haven't quite earned a spot in first class, the tons of salmon that have been a steady and lucrative source of income for the airline are finally getting some recognition: a giant king salmon portrait on the side of a plane.



"This airplane celebrates Alaska Airlines' unique relationship with the people and communities of Alaska and underscores our air-transport commitment to the state's seafood industry," said Gregg Saretsky, the Seattle-based carrier's vice president of marketing and planning.

It took a team of 30 painters 24 days to adorn the 120-foot-long Boeing 737 passenger jet with the shimmering likeness. The average 737 takes about a week to paint.



The plane already needed a new paint job, and Alaska Airlines covered about $75,000 of the tab, company spokeswoman Amanda Tobin said.

The federally funded Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board paid for the rest of the roughly $300,000 project, said Bill Hines, the board's executive director.

Hines, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official, has led the board since Congress created it in 2003 to give Alaska's then-struggling salmon industry a boost.

"Three years ago, the salmon industry was at rock bottom. Now demand exceeds supply," Hines said during a recent tour of the Goodrich Aviation Technical Services plant in Everett, where the plane was being repainted.

Alaska Airlines is the only major carrier that flies into and out of many of the remote fishing outposts in Southeast Alaska. It expects to fly more than 30 million pounds of seafood from Alaska to the United States, Canada and Mexico this year.

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Most of the fish, crab and other seafood caught in Alaskan waters is frozen before it's shipped, in which case there's no big rush to get it to buyers.

But there's growing demand for fresh, wild seafood — driven in part by reports about problems associated with farmed fish, including the use of pesticides, antibiotics and other potentially harmful chemicals.

"You can catch a salmon in Alaska waters, and within 24 hours you'll have it on a plate in New York City. We're pretty much the only airline that can do that kind of business," said Matt Yerbic, managing director for the airline's cargo operations.

Alaska Airlines is spending $15 million to convert five 737-400s to cargo configurations this year. The company expects that will allow it to ship more than 50 percent more fish, mail and other cargo annually.

The one-of-a-kind "Salmon-Thirty-Salmon," as the airline is calling the specially painted jet, will remain a passenger plane — a move designed to give it maximum exposure to potential seafood consumers.

Mark Boyle, the artist who designed the image, spent about a year working on it and said he's pleased with how it turned out.

"The challenge was to make it anatomically correct and fit the tube of an airplane," he said one recent morning as a crew prepared to paint the pink scales along the side of the jet.

After a celebration at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport yesterday, the plane was scheduled to make its first flight to Anchorage today, then hop to Cordova, Yakutat and Juneau.

After that, the plane will fly West Coast and other passenger routes.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002534481_flyingfish02.html

Quoted: How many people after seeing that paint job will say to the missus, "honey I think I'll go to the store and buy a salmon!"

Made me get some out of the freezer

I saw the TV report last night.  I like the salmon.

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - Page updated at 11:24 AM

Danny Westneat

Any way you slice it, the salmon plane is pork

Have you heard about the "America gives back" movement?

I say we kick it off by giving back that salmon plane. The idea goes like this: To help rebuild the wreckage left by Hurricane Katrina, all regions of the nation should voluntarily give up some recently begotten federal largess.

Pushed by some quixotic folks up in Alaska, the premise is to return this year's federal pork — the museums, parking garages, horse trails and other less-than-urgent projects doled out by Congress to the tune of billions of dollars.

A letter at the americagivesback.org Web site captures the spirit: "This money, a gift from the people of Alaska, will represent more than just material aid; it will be a symbol for our beleaguered democracy."

The state's congressman, Don Young, had other words for it: "Ignorance and stupidity," he called it, as well as "the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Which brings me back to the salmon plane.

Last weekend, Seattle's Alaska Airlines rolled out its new "Salmon-Thirty-Salmon," the world's most intricately decorated jet. It took a crew of 30 — including three Hollywood set-design specialists — almost a month to paint a giant chinook on both sides.

It cost five times the standard rate. The airline's marketing director, Greg Latimer, enthused: "There is no way we could even entertain such a project if we had to incur this cost ourselves."

So — and you knew this was coming — we picked up the tab. The paint job was paid for with a $500,000 federal grant designed to encourage people to eat Alaska salmon.

The Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board, which made the grant, has doled out $29 million the past two years, all of it taxpayer money to urge people to buy Alaska salmon.

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"Is there something wrong with these fish that warrants such an expensive program to convince us to eat them?" wondered Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in 2004.

He doesn't know the half of it. It turns out there are two taxpayer-supported groups marketing Alaska salmon. The other one, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, gets $5 million a year from taxpayers. (It also gets about half its budget from fishing companies.)

The government subsidies are an attempt to prop up a fishing industry that is being undercut on price by fish farms.

I feel for the fishermen. But we've completely lost sight of the purpose of national government when it's going around commissioning flying billboards.

That's why we need to give it back. It would be the first flicker of understanding that with the Gulf states in tatters, a war and an $8 trillion national debt, some sacrifice might be required. It would be a sign of resolve that we can pay our way, rather than leaving all our bills to the kids.

I realize we can't literally give back the pork plane. It's our flying folly, and we're stuck with it.

We may not even be allowed to return money we just got for other low-priority projects — $1.2 million for a Welcome Center in Enumclaw, $200,000 for a streetcar in Issaquah, $800,000 for a trail in Snohomish County, and on and on.

But pending in Congress right now, in this season of tragedy and debts, is a new $10 million earmark to extend this salmon-marketing campaign. That money will buy more of the same — more market studies, more ads, perhaps even more flying billboards, all to try to get you to eat the correct salmon.

If we can't toss that one back, we can't say no to anything.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002540401_danny05.html