Wien's work with aviation safety paid off for Alaska Airlines; "Today I believe this is the only airline that has a board of directors run safety program," Wien points out.

In Valdez he met aviator Noel Wien and quickly settled on a career as a pilot, flying for Northern Consolidated, Interior Airways, Alaska Airlines, and most notably Wien Airlines, the latter from ...

The company merged with Star Air Service two years later and, in 1944, became Alaska Airlines. TOOLS OF THE TRADE: Flying in Alaska was as much about the ground as the air.

The Wien hangar burns while a crowd of onlookers helplessly watches. The two hangars to the right of the burning building are the two belonging to Alaska Airlines.

In 1961, two commercial airline pilots, Bill English and Tom Richards, Sr., who flew for the now-defunct Wien Air Alaska, were flying back and forth to some of the state’s outlying communities.

Charles "Chuck" West, 90, an Alaska tourism pioneer who founded the Seattle-based cruise line Cruise West, died Tuesday of natural causes at his cabin in Haines, Alaska.

Born Alec Junior Kulgavchuk to immigrants from Belarus and Ukraine, Klick in 1955 "traveled to territory of Alaska with friend at 18 years of age with $50," according to his notes.