Actions Taken by Alaska Airlines to Date.

Business Editors

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 2, 2000

Alaska Airlines has already taken a number of steps during the past four months to address items identified by the FAA during its "white glove" audit of the carrier's maintenance operations, which was completed April 19.

In addition to the FAA "white glove" audit, Alaska commissioned its own independent assessment by a team of 13 well-regarded safety experts.

Some of the steps Alaska has taken include:

-- Appointing David Prewitt as Vice President of Safety and Ben

Forrest as Interim Director of Safety

-- Appointing Kevin Finan as Vice President of Flight Operations

-- Appointing Brian Hirshman as Staff Vice President of

Maintenance

-- Establishing a direct employee Safety Hotline to the Chairman

and CEO 

-- Appointing a new Manager, Base Maintenance, Seattle, Kurt

Kinder

-- Hiring 70 Maintenance and Engineering employees, more than

half of whom are mechanics.

-- Changing General Maintenance Manual to assure clarity and

consistency to procedures and policies.

-- Successful implementation during the past six weeks of a

schedule recovery plan that ensures all equipment unrelated to

safety of flight is in optimum condition for the busy summer

schedule.

-- Completing a thorough review of every "C" check aircraft in

the fleet to assure that all paperwork was properly accounted

for and that all work was properly done. Results of that

review -- overseen by the FAA -- demonstrated that 99.94

percent of the 257,000 documents reviewed were in conformity.

-- Instituting a policy prohibiting the release of any aircraft

from heavy check without the express approval of the vice

president/maintenance and engineering or the director of

quality control and training.

-- Establishing weekly meetings attended by key individuals from

the FAA with the senior management of the airline's

maintenance and engineering department to review progress on

all programs in process and to ensure that all activities

remain on schedule.