Photo Courtesy of Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines has hired its first set of twin brothers after hiring a new pilot, only to discover that their new aviator has a twin brother who also flies for them.
According to the airline, the twins, Alex and Alan, have their parents to thank for their strong admiration for aviation. Every Sunday after church, their father took them plane spotting, and their mother dragged them along on every business trip she took
. When the boys hit 13, they moved from Kenya to California. Alan and Alex’s mother fueled their passion by gifting them a Microsoft Flight Simulator.“After I started playing with the program, that was it. I knew I wanted to do that [fly] for a job,” Alan said.
Alex was with Alaska Airlines before his brother. When Alan was looking to move on from regional airlines, he immediately knew Alaska Airlines was his choice, mainly because he loved the people and company culture.
“When I was working as a fueler, Alaska employees – whether it was pilots or people working across the operation – were always the nicest people who reached out to encourage me,” Alan said.
Alan agreed with his brother’s statement saying, “Alaska is like a family – you’re not a number.”
Now that the identical twins work for the same airline, they share the goal to fly with each other, an unusual thing.
“We’ve never flown together professionally because we’ve always been on different aircraft,” Alex, a first officer, said. “The goal is to have one of us upgrade to captain and be operating the same aircraft so we can fly together.”
Once they can fly together, they hope to have their mother in the cabin to witness the moment.
“We have to get her on one of our flights,” Alex remarked.