Laid off from Alaska Air Group.

What Alaska Air Group layoffs have meant for employees

If you're one of Hawaiian's non-contract employees, the merger has worked to a calendar of milestones more than to a single announcement. Most of Hawaiian's roughly 1,300 non-contract employees got either a permanent role or an interim one after the merger, Hawaiian's spokesperson said in January 2025, and he said some interim positions were tied to specific integration milestones. The WARN letters sent since the merger gave two months' notice that the interim roles they covered would end as milestones were met, he told the Star-Advertiser in March 2026, adding that a smaller number of duplicative roles would end at later ones, including the new union contracts. If your letter ties your role to a milestone, that milestone is what your last day hangs on, and the written date can still move, since Hawaiian said in January 2025 that it might extend some interim positions. It's worth keeping both in view.

Moving to another job inside the company has been a real outcome for some of the people named. Of the 73 in Hawaiian's first merger round, 31 found new work in the combined company, and so did 30 of the 61 in the second, the spokesperson said in the Star-Advertiser's July 2025 story. That's close to half of both rounds together. He said then that some people in the July round would land front-line union jobs instead, and Hawaiian's union positions had grown from about 5,000 before the merger to more than 5,600, so a move inside can mean a different kind of work. If a retention bonus comes with what you're offered, whether leaving early for one of those jobs keeps the bonus is worth weighing alongside the move.

In Alaska's 2020 cuts, the notices and the furloughs ended up far apart. In Washington alone, the August notice listed almost 1,600 permanent layoffs, The Seattle Times reported, and the flight attendants' union said its notices carried a significant buffer above the layoffs it expected. A notice that said permanent didn't settle who would actually leave. Alaska avoided pilot layoffs by offering half pay for voluntary leave and offered flight attendants unpaid leave that kept their health care. The furloughs that followed were a fraction of the notices, most of the people furloughed were back by the end of 2020, and about 300 non-union management positions were eliminated for good, according to its 2020 Form 10-K. Before Alaska owned it, Hawaiian had already cut about 14% of its non-contract positions by that August, as its Item 2.05 filing put it, and offered voluntary separation packages, including early retirement, to eligible employees.

Not every cut carries the Alaska name. Notices from McGee Air Services, which Alaska's 2025 Form 10-K calls a ground services subsidiary, have gone in under McGee's own name, Horizon's Medford notice went to Oregon under Horizon's, and Hawaiian's notices in Hawaii have gone in as Hawaiian Airlines or as Alaska Airlines. If you're tracing the notice behind a particular job, it may sit under any of those names in our WARN tracker, not only under Alaska Air Group.

For represented Horizon crews, that Medford letter named Teamsters Local 1224 as the pilots' union and the Association of Flight Attendants as the flight attendants', the two groups whose contracts set the bidding and transfer terms there. The notices since the merger went to Hawaii, Oregon, California and Arizona, and the 2020 round reached Washington as well. The unemployment benefits pages for Hawaii, Oregon, California, Arizona and Washington lay out each state's filing steps.

A sourced history of Alaska Air Group layoffs

• October 2026, Hawaiian notice for 13 more non-union roles

  Eleven of the roles are at Hawaiian's corporate headquarters, one at its cargo hangar and one at Honolulu's airport, among about 537 non-contract employees at those sites, according to Hawaii's labor department.

• April 2026, McGee notice for 29 Los Angeles jobs

  McGee Air Services, the ground services subsidiary named in Alaska's 2025 Form 10-K, filed the California notice dated April 14, 2026, effective June 14, according to our WARN tracker.

• March 2026, Horizon Air notice closing its Medford crew base

  Horizon set May 31, 2026 to close its base for 78 pilots and flight attendants at Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport while keeping the station open, its letter to Oregon said.

• February 2026, Hawaiian notice for 48 more non-union roles

  The 48 layoffs were set for May and June, and the notice mostly reflected roles ending as the airlines adopted a single passenger service system in late April, Hawaiian's spokesperson said in the Star-Advertiser.

• January 2026, McGee closure notice in Oakland

  McGee's notice dated January 5, 2026 covered 32 jobs at 1 Airport Drive in Oakland and was marked a closure, effective March 6, according to our WARN tracker.

• September 2025, McGee notice for 79 Phoenix jobs

  McGee's Arizona notice, dated September 10, 2025, covered 79 jobs in Phoenix, according to our WARN tracker.

• July 2025, Hawaiian notice for 252 non-contract jobs

  Some of the 252 were set to go around September 18, the deal's first anniversary, and others 30 days after the FAA's grant of a single operating certificate to the combined carriers, Hawaiian's spokesperson told the Star-Advertiser.

• January 2025, Hawaiian notices for 61 interim roles

  Notices to 61 non-contract employees in Honolulu were tied to March 17, when their six-month interim roles were due to end, the Star-Advertiser reported.

• October 2024, Hawaiian's first post-merger cuts

  In its first merger round, according to the Star-Advertiser, Hawaiian said 57 non-contract workers in Hawaii and 16 on the mainland would be laid off as of December 17.

• October 2020, Alaska furloughs about 400 after summer notices

  In August, according to The Seattle Times, Alaska said 4,200 employees had received WARN notices or been laid off. After leaves and early-outs, about 400 went on involuntary furlough October 1, by the count in its 2020 Form 10-K.

• August 2020, Hawaiian notices to pilot and flight attendant groups

  Hawaiian told about 414 employees in its pilot and flight attendant work groups of a workforce reduction from October 1, after July notices naming about 2,135 employees as possibly affected, its Item 2.05 filing shows.

What to do if you're laid off from Alaska Air Group

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Alaska Air Group's biggest hubs: Washington, California, Hawaii, Oregon. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Alaska Air Group's hub states run: Washington, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.