Update on my Internship!

Hello from Seattle! I am about ready to begin week 9 of my awesome internship and so far, it has been surreal. Wait. Week 9?? Already?? How am I almost done? Times really does ‘fly’ when you are having fun! As much as I want to share every minute detail of my internship, sadly I cannot; due to the company’s privacy policy. However, I will give a general picture of what I have been up to!

My desk

The first few weeks were mainly updating aircraft manuals (pages upon pages of them) and swapping them out on board the aircraft. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t the most thrilling project, but when we got to got to the aircraft to swap them out, that was awesome! The next few weeks were full of little projects around the different departments like the technical pilots, flight operations administration, and technical publications in Flight Operations. I currently have 3 projects that I am working on which all involve different things. Without getting into too much detail, I am working with the ACARS system (the magical computer box that you can program routes, performance, flight plans, etc into), an Operations Specification (Ops Spec), and a taxi time project where the other intern and I have to travel to Anchorage and LAX and, of course, Seattle to complete it!

Working on the taxi project

Other things I have done are helping out in the 737 simulators, tours of ATC and airport facilities and helping out over at the corporate building. One thing that is interesting is there is always food somewhere in the building. One day every month, without fail, there is “the food cube” in one spot of the office. It becomes “active” when food has been brought in. Various employees bring in food, under no obligation, to share and eat! Here is what it looked like one week.

The food cube

As far as how I feel about the internship, it has honestly been the most amazing and incredible experience of my life! The people at Alaska Airlines are one of a kind. They are kind and welcoming and really care about you as a person. I talk with the Manager of Flight Operations and the Chief Pilot everyday and both of them always stop to ask how I am doing, regardless of their busy schedule. I am incredibly fortunate to be interning with them and I know it will be really hard to leave when the internship is over. I will keep you updated on more cool stuff next week!