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Alaska Airlines employs 175 people in Juneau, and boards 250,000 passengers a year here, up from 140,000 in 1987, Ayer said.

Speaking in the Ballroom of the Hangar on the Wharf, Ayer said it was an appropriate spot to talk about Alaska Airlines, because it is the site of one of its predecessors, Alaska Coastal.

The high standards of those pioneers, he added, could be seen as the "keys to success" of Alaska Airlines.

The parent company of Alaska Airlines was McGee Airways, which began in 1932 and flew from Anchorage to Bristol Bay. The name Alaska Airlines was incorporated in 1944. The company grew to become the largest charter operator in the world, participating in the Berlin Airlift and other historic events such as relocating displaced European Jews in Palestine, Ayer said.

Alaska was the first airline to introduce in-flight movies in the 1950s, he said. In the 1970s, it was one of only three airlines that pushed for deregulation. In 1979, Seattle was as far south as the airline flew, but in the next decade it began flying to California and Mexico. And in 1986, Alaska Air Group acquired Horizon Air, a smaller airline that flew in the Pacific Northwest. In the 1990s, Alaska improved profitability and brought in new planes and new technology, Ayer said.

"Lots of airlines have come and gone" over the past 70 years, Ayer said. "I believe differentiation - providing services to travelers that others do not - is what helped us to survive" when companies such as Wien and Air Cal did not.

Alaska Airlines now boasts more than 10,000 employees, operates 102 aircraft and serves 400 cities. In Alaska it employs 1,800 people.

That Alaska is the only major airline with multiple mileage-plan partners has "proved to be very important as we expand our network," Ayer said. Fleet differentiation has allowed the company to match passengers with markets, typically carrying both cargo and passengers to all its in-state destinations, he said.

Meals and the option to upgrade to first class also attract customers. "Those set us apart from other airlines," Ayer said.

"But our people are the strongest form of differentiation," he noted. "We continually look to bring (aboard) new people who share the same values as our founders did in the 1930s."

Ann Chandonnet can be reached at achandonnet@juneauempire.com.