Saying it hopes to take advantage of nationwide 5G capabilities, Alaska Airlines this morning announced it has chosen T-Mobile as its new wireless provider.
The agreement will merge two companies based in the Pacific Northwest.
"We are excited to partner with T-Mobile to create a more seamless travel experience using T-Mobile's next generation mobile solutions," Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement. "The sky is the limit on what we will be able to create together for Alaska's guests and employees."
T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert echoed Minicucci's thoughts.
"Alaska is a lot like T-Mobile in some really important ways," he said. "Besides both being based in Seattle, Alaska and T-Mobile have a long history of challenging conventional thinking in our industries and pioneering new ways to use technological innovation to put customers first. T-Mobile has always fixed customer pain points in the wireless industry, and it's inspiring to help translate that to other industries with like-minded partners like Alaska."
The carrier said that with air travel returning to normal - capacity is now more than 80 percent of what it was in 2019 thanks to a robust Thanksgiving holiday period - it is looking to take advantage of the high-bandwidth, low latency capabilities of 5G to optimize every aspect of the customer experience, from ticketing to check-in, on-time departures and arrivals, baggage tracking and more.
However, the Federal Aviation Administration last month issued a special information bulletin to the industry warning of potential issues with 5G telecommunications technology causing interference with sensitive aircraft electronics.
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