Alaska Air Group has appointed Jason Berry as new chief operating officer of Alaska Airlines, with Andy Schneider taking over as chief executive and president of regional subsidiary Horizon Air.
Berry will replace retiring Constance von Muehlen in Alaska Air’s COO role. He currently works as president of Horizon, as well as the company’s executive vice-president of cargo.
Berry worked in leadership roles for Air Canada, Cargolux and McGee Air Services.
His new role will begin effective 3 November, with von Muehlen staying on in an advisory capacity until February, when she will conclude a 15-year career with Alaska Air Group.
She became COO in 2021 and “led the airline through a significant period of growth and transformation”, Alaska says.
Meanwhile, Schneider will become chief executive and president of Horizon Air. She has worked with Alaska Air for more than 35 years, currently as senior vice-president of people at Alaska Airlines.
The company says Schneider “has played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s culture and talent strategy”.
This latest leadership shuffle comes after Alaska Air recently chose Diana Birkett Rakow, another Alaska Air executive, to replace Joe Sprague as CEO of Hawaiian Airlines.
Notably, women now occupy the top leadership positions at both Hawaiian and Horizon.
Alaska Air is still working to combine Alaska and Hawaiian under a single operator’s certificate after acquiring Hawaiian last year. It expects to pass that combination milestone “later this fall”.
Alaska Air recently tempered third-quarter earnings expectations amid rising fuel costs, irregular operations and an IT outage that disrupted flights on 20 July.
The Seattle-headquartered airline company now expects to come in at the low end of its previously forecast earnings per share of $1-1.40 for the July-September period.
Alaska will likely report its third-quarter results at the end of October.
