With Alaska Air Group seeing strong momentum, with a stock return of 56.51% in 2024 and 27.81% revenue growth in the last twelve months, Birkett Rakow will take over an airline with strong metrics. She will remain based in Honolulu and report to Ben Minicucci, CEO of Alaska Air Group.

Joe Sprague, who was named CEO of Hawaiian Airlines after Alaska Air Group completed its acquisition of the carrier in September 2024, will stay on during the transition. Before that, he was an executive at Alaska Airlines and president of regional subsidiary Horizon Air. Alaska Air Group has a strong financial health score and is considered undervalued based on InvestPro’s “Fair Value Assessment.”

The company’s success is reflected in its attractive 0.56 Price/Earnings-to-Growth ratio. The leadership change comes as Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines near completion of their integration into a single mainline operating carrier under one Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) operating certificate, expected in the next few months.

Alaska Air Group also announced that Kyle Levine will be promoted to a position overseeing public and government affairs. He will assume the role of executive vice president of corporate and public affairs, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary. The company, which serves over 140 destinations across North America, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific, will begin its European service in spring 2026.

Meet Diana Birkett Rakow

Diana Birkett Rakow was drawn to science and exploration from a young age, leading her to Harvard University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry. Additionally, she holds two Master of Arts degrees—one in public administration and one in public health—from the University of Washington Evans School of Public Affairs.

In a 2016 interview, she shared that she had initially applied to a Master of Fine Arts in painting and trained as a yoga teacher before entering the healthcare field, experiences she believes helped her develop creativity in her work. Birkett Rakow began her professional journey as a health policy advisor for the US Senate Finance Committee in Washington, D.C.

She spent over a decade at Group Health in various senior positions, including Executive Director of Public Policy and Executive Vice President of Public Affairs. After its acquisition by Kaiser Permanente, she continued on as Vice President of Public Affairs, Communications, and Brand Management.

Diana Birkett Rakow later became Vice President of External Relations at Alaska Airlines, and was subsequently promoted to Senior Vice President of Public Affairs and Sustainability, where she led the environmental and social governance (ESG) strategy, government affairs, communications, and community relations.

She spearheaded the airline’s efforts toward achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, and oversaw the airline’s venture investment arm, Alaska Star Ventures, which invests in new technologies to help reach that goal.

After Alaska Air Group acquired Hawaiian Airlines, Diana Birkett Rakow was named CEO of Hawaiian Airlines in October 2025, making her the first female CEO in Hawaiian Airlines’ history.

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American Airlines, the largest US carrier by passengers, said it would drop a route between Chicago and Shanghai– canceling the second direct flight from the U.S. city to China in four months. It had previously canceled a flight to Beijing in May. It still however, operates daily flights to the capital from Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.

Vasu Raja, vice president of network and schedule planning added: “The two China routes … have been colossal loss makers for us,” stating that high fuel costs had also made the route unsustainable.

Hawaiian Airlines stated that it would suspend its thrice- weekly nonstop service between Honolulu and Beijing, which opened in 2014—from October. It cited slower-than-expected growth in demand as the reason.

Competition from Chinese airlines is expected to grow with the anticipated easing of China’s near-decade-old “one route, one airline” policy, which would allow more local airlines to fly long-haul international routes.

Mike Boyd, president of aviation forecaster Boyd Group stated: “US airlines are at a severe disadvantage.”

“The majority of demand is China-generated, and that gives Chinese carriers the advantage.” He added.

Chinese passengers arriving at U.S. airports are expected to nearly triple to 12.8 mn in 2024 from 4.3 mn this year, The profile is shifting from groups to independent travelers, according to Boyd Group.

Scott Kirby, president of United Airline stated that Shanghai and Beijing has rebounded for the airline after several years of weakness, despite revenue per available seat mile (RASM) being below levels of two or three years prior.

“We’ve had several years of weakness as there was an awful lot of capacity growth out of Beijing and Shanghai.” He stated.

Both American and Hawaiian airlines however stated that the demands placed by China’s civil aviation regulator on foreign airlines to amend the way they referred to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan on their websites, did not play any part in the route cancellations.

Hawaiian’s chief executive, Peter Ingram, stated: “That issue of how Taiwan was displayed on our website had absolutely zero impact on this decision. Our economic evaluation was well underway long before that issue arose.”

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