Pioneering Progress: Alaska Airlines Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Journey From 2021 to 2025

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

In February 2021, Alaska Airline unveiled Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) objectives for 2025, aiming to foster a more inclusive workplace environment. As of our latest update in March 2023, our initiatives focus on enhancing representation, elevating public leadership, and cultivating an inclusive culture.

With roughly 18 months remaining, we find varying degrees of progress across different sectors, continually learning and identifying new areas of focus to better align with our objectives. Here’s an overview of our current status and efforts to hasten progress:

Representation

We have seen marginal yet consistent improvements in racial diversity among our frontline staff, increasing by 0.1 percentage points year-over-year. Leadership diversity has shown more significant growth, with a 1.9 percentage point increase. Our talent pipeline has notably expanded within supervisory/managerial roles and among individual contributors poised for director-level positions or higher. Our BIPOC leadership at the director level or above has surged by 44% since 2021.

Key actions to fortify our diverse talent pipeline include analyzing and broadening effective pipeline programs, emphasizing leader accountability, refining our Affirmative Action Plans (AAP) to address representation disparities, and enhancing mentorship and professional development opportunities.

Snapshot of Current Progress:

• Leader Academy has graduated 200 individuals, with 40% BIPOC and 49% female participants.
• Expanded our True North Pilot Development Program to include more diverse educational institutions, significantly enhancing student pilot diversity.
• Launched ELEVATE, enhancing growth opportunities for Business Resource Group (BRG) leaders.
• The Ascend Pilot Academy has welcomed 125 new students, with noteworthy diversity statistics.

Gender, Veteran, and Disability Representation:

• Increased BIPOC representation across most career stages, excluding core/frontline and officer levels.
• Modest changes in gender diversity, with female representation stable, except at the officer and managing director levels.
• Veteran representation has increased by 2.8%.
• Disability self-identification rates have remained steady.

Culture

Our employee engagement surveys now feature eight inclusion-focused questions to derive our “Inclusion Index Score,” which has recently decreased from +7 to +4.

To bolster a sense of belonging, we are implementing several initiatives:

• Forming a DEI council to advocate for inclusive policies.
• Enhancing interactions with BRGs to gather feedback and derive actionable insights.
• Introducing targeted DEI training and revising policies to better support diversity and inclusion across the organization.

Recent Cultural Initiatives:

• Launched a new BRG for younger professionals.
• Introduced more inclusive employee and facility resources.
• Enhanced guest services to accommodate diverse needs, including the introduction of expanded gender options and accessibility features.

Public Leadership

We continue to champion education as a fundamental pathway to equity, actively supporting educational endeavors through collaborations and sponsorships.

Educational Initiatives and Community Engagement:

• Sponsored educational tours and events, leveraging our fleet for educational purposes, including HBCU college tours.
• Partnered with organizations aligned with our educational and equity goals.
• Developed programs like the Student Talent and Exploration Partnership (STEP), providing immersive industry exposure to high school students.

Our journey towards 2025 continues as we aim to not only meet but exceed our DEI goals, making substantive strides in creating an equitable workplace.

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