Alaska Air Group Inc., is an aviation holding firm / corporation based in SeaTac, Washington which owns two certificated airlines operating in the United States: Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air. In 1985, it was formed and a year later the holding company acquired Horizon Air and Jet America Airlines. Jet America Airlines, and their employees were merged into Alaska Airlines in 1987. Alaska Air Group has no relationship to JetAmerica, an airline proposed in 2009. Alaska Air Group subsidiaries employed 9,866 staff as recently as 2007, but have cut that number back substantially by 2008. It... remains undetermined how many employees actually work for Alaska Air Group itself. Alaska Airlines operates only U.S. built Boeing aircraft with up to 172 seats while Horizon operates only Canadian built Bombardier aircraft with up to 76 seats. The separation of the two companies is not due to "Scope Clauses," as is the case with other similar holding companies and their airlines such as Mesa Air Group and Freedom Airlines or Republic Airways Holdings and Shuttle America.
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