The airline industry has the ability to make a big difference in people’s lives, beyond travel for business or leisure. We aim to make a positive impact through things like LIFT miles, disaster relief efforts, honoring those who serve, and by protecting the beautiful places we live and fly.
Learn more about what we are doing.
Our LIFT Miles program offers Mileage Plan™ members a unique and meaningful way to support important causes and use travel for impact. Members are able to donate their miles to help charities with business travel, accommodate special requests and achieve the organization’s mission.
Donate to charity. Mileage Plan™ members can support important causes by donating miles that help the medical and emergency needs of others. In 2018 alone, more than 53.8 million miles were donated by our passengers, valued at approximately $1.4 million.
We support more than 1,300 organizations annually, including the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Alaska Native Science and Engineering program. In 2018 alone, Alaska Airlines funded almost $17 million in support.
Employees can donate through our Gift Matching and Volunteer Rewards programs. In 2017, our Gift Matching program raised over $493,000 — matched by Alaska for a total of $986,000. Volunteer Rewards participants earned and donated $180,221 and more than 44,000 hours to causes of their choice.
As part of a collective effort to reduce the environmental impact of each flight, we encourage everyone to offset their travel by contributing to carbon offset projects. Our team has carefully selected high quality and independently verified projects to ensure all contributions are making a difference.
Offset your travel. Purchase carbon offsets from our nonprofit partner, the Carbonfund.org Foundation, to compensate for your travel-related emissions by funding projects that reduce CO₂ elsewhere in the U.S.
In 2018, our guests offset an impressive 125,663 pounds of CO₂e through carbon offset contributions. Collectively, our airlines and our guests have offset 8,195 metric tons of CO₂e since 2013—the equivalent of taking almost 1,800 passenger cars off the road for a year.
Our current offset projects reduce emissions through renewable energy and energy efficiency—like the Inland Empire Utilities Agency Biodigester, a methane capture and elimination project that creates renewable energy while capturing more than 8,000 tons of CO₂e annually and protecting the quality of the region’s groundwater.
Part of running a great airline is supporting the communities we serve, especially in times of need. We have a long-standing relationship with the American Red Cross and make monetary and air miles donations to support relief efforts in the wake of natural disasters. Our employees can also have their charitable donations matched through our matching gift program.
Donate miles to our Alaska Airlines Disaster Relief Pool. Miles donated to the Alaska Airlines Disaster Relief Pool support disaster relief efforts, including the transportation of medical staff and volunteers. Last year we donated 160,000 miles from our Disaster Relief Pool to Airlink, a rapid response disaster relief organization, helping three waves of rapid response volunteers bring aid and assistance to the communities impacted by the flooding in Wisconsin and Illinois.
In the wake of 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, we donated $100,000 and one million miles to the American Red Cross, and matched employees donations made to the Red Cross, Airlink, Airline Ambassadors and Angel Flight West to support relief efforts.
In 2017, we donated $50,000 to the Salvation Army’s Northern California wildfire relief efforts and held supply drives at our hub locations to provide victims of the Northern California wildfires with items such as soap, toothbrushes, and shampoo.