Bunk Headline Prods Airline To Pull Ads

Wed., May 24, 2000

From Staff

Angered by a “deaths and funerals” headline over an Alaska Airlines advertisement - possibly a prank that got into print - the regional carrier has pulled its advertising from The Seattle Times.

At least 20,000 newspapers out of a 500,000 Sunday press run were delivered with the headline that ran over part of an Alaska Airlines ad. Times officials said Monday they were trying to determine whether it was deliberately altered or whether a piece of type accidentally fell onto the page in production.

The newspaper apologized, but Alaska Airlines spokesman Greg Witter said the carrier will stop running ads in the state’s largest circulation daily “until quality assurance is in place.”

The error appeared two days after an Alaska Airlines baggage handler died when he was pinned between a baggage cart and a jetliner at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Alaska Airlines officials already were unhappy about news reports on investigations into the carrier’s maintenance operations following the crash in which all 88 aboard died off the California coast Jan. 31.

The ad apparently was fouled up in the page makeup room Saturday night as the page was being prepared on deadline to go to press, said Frank Paiva, Times vice president of operations.

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