Alaska Airlines shows off its top guns

Fox Islander joins ranks of customer service legends

Susan Schell

of the Gateway

The photograph shows a young man standing in an airline pilot’s uniform, next to an older man in identical dress. The man is captain Mike Rinehart standing next to his father Jack Rinehart, when both men flew commercial jets for Braniff Airlines.

Rinehart has come a long way in his piloting career. Having flown for Alaska Airlines since 1983, the Fox Islander recently obtained the airline’s top honor: the Customer Service Legend Award. With that, his name will be carved in stone —literally.

“His name will be carved in stone at Alaska’s corporate office on International

Boulevard,” said his wife, Sally Rinehart.

The pilot was honored in grand style at an awards banquet with some of his fellow employees at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle last month. To make the event extra special, Rinehart’s brother was flown in from San Diego, and his mother-in-law was flown first-class from Minneapolis. Rinehart was able to finagle his way into the captain’s seat on her plane by switching flights with a fellow pilot.

“She had no idea I would be flying the plane,” he said. “She didn’t know until I walked out of the ticket gate to greet her.”

When he’s not in the cockpit, Rinehart trains fellow pilots and was instrumental in developing a pilot safety training program known as Crew Resource Management. He is also a member of the critical incident response team, who contacts fellow pilots who have experienced a traumatic event to offer condolences or advice.

“It’s mostly about checking in to see where they are emotionally,” he said. “Someone may be having a hard time sleeping or it could be more serious. It’s also to offer them someone to talk to if they need help.”

This sort of camaraderie is a natural for Rinehart, who feels he differs from most pilots by being more into personal relationships than just instrumental work.

“In general, pilots are engineering types who are task-oriented,” he said. “I feel if you put enough effort into relationships the tasks will get done.”

Rinehart’s sentimental side is easy to spot just by the bag he carries. His flight bag, affectionately named a “brain bag” by pilots, which carries all the checklists, navigation charts and information he needs to complete his flight, is worn and scruffy. Leather patches have even been applied by a local shoe repair shop to keep it from falling apart. The bag belonged to the captain’s father.

“I’ll carry this bag until the day I retire,” he said. “People say, ‘If you weren’t so cheap you’d buy a new bag.’ When I say it was my dad’s they stop teasing. He bought it in 1964. This bag is older than most of my co-pilots.”

Rinehart laments how the flying business has become “much more serious” over the years.

“The regulations are set with good intentions,” he said. “But everything is so procedural and bound by rules.”

The pilot recalled accompanying his father on an off-duty flight when his father was summoned to the cockpit because the co-pilot had fallen ill. Jack Rinehart assumed the duty and parked his ten-year-old son in the cockpit during the flight.

“That would never happen today,” he said. “My mother was waiting for us at the airport when we landed. She said when she saw my little blonde head looking out the cockpit window she knew I’d be a pilot.”

Rinehart has fond memories of living in Alaska and seeing moose on the runway as he puddle-jumped between small-town airports.

“Flying is fun at small airports with less employees and everybody knows everybody,” he said. “They had long-term employees and there wasn’t a lot of turnover. You felt like you were important. You brought the milk in and took sick people out.”

The airline industry is now based on who’s on time and who’s not on time, Rinehart said. “But it’s still a human business. There’s still time for judgment and adaptability.”

He reveals a joke that’s common in the industry: future airplanes will be flown with one pilot, one dog and a computer. The computer will fly the plane, the pilot will feed the dog and the dog will bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything.

“The flying business is full of fun stories,” Rinehart said. “Now it’s a different era and the young pilots see the industry a lot differently. But they still love to hear all the good stories —they just have to hear them from us.”

Reach Lifestyles Coordinator and reporter Susan Schell at 253-853-9240 or by e-mail at susan.schell@