Alaska Airlines is expanding its workforce and routes

As the summer travel season peaks in Hawaii, Alaska Airlines is hiring employees at unprecedented levels, expanding direct flights to the state and taking further steps to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

In some ways the summer marks the airline’s first without any travel restrictions since the COVID-19 pandemic, Diana Birkett Rakow, senior vice president of public affairs and sustainability at Alaska Airlines, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” live­stream program Friday.

From June 29 to July 5, the airline welcomed 1 million passengers systemwide, and June 30 saw the largest single-day passenger total in the company’s 90-year history.

However, Alaska Airlines is still recovering from staffing losses during the pandemic, which Rakow attributed to increased retirements and employees wanting to shift careers or move to new locations, a trend across the business world.

Now that leisure travel demand has surpassed pre-pandemic levels and business travel has bounced back nearly 80%, the airline is investing in hiring more employees, according to Rakow. She said the company is currently filling 400 pilot positions, with 284 already hired.

Hawaii, and particularly Honolulu, remains a popular destination for Alaska Airlines travelers, she said, and local employment opportunities are available in entry-level and management positions, with 30 job openings in Kona, 25 in Lihue and 20 on Maui.

In November, Alaska Airlines will begin offering a direct flight from Daniel K. Inouye International Airport to Seattle’s Paine Field International Airport. Most passengers traveling between Hawaii and Seattle go through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, south of Seattle. Paine Field International Airport is north of Seattle, and depending on the vehicular traffic, Rakow said the two airports are equidistant from the city center.

“Being able to offer both leisure and business travelers an option from the north end of the city is a really big difference and is just trying to get more traffic through that airport,” she said.

Rakow told “Spotlight” that the airline’s sustainability efforts include plans to utilize smaller electric and hybrid electric aircraft, nontraditional combustion engines and sustainable aviation fuel made from waste materials such as forestry residue and used cooking oil or carbon recaptured from the air.

“That’s an area we’re putting a lot of energy toward because we think it’s a market that not only will be essential for a more sustainable future, but will continue to grow,” Rakow said.