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Contributors
Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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SeaTac's Alaska Airlines tops a new airline satisfaction study by survey firm J.D. Power & Associates.
Alaska, closely followed by Continental Airlines, was rated at the top of the traditional carriers rank in the Power survey of airline customers.
Alaska earned five out of five gold circles in the Power survey in overall satisfaction, flight reservations and scheduling, check-in, aircraft interior, boarding, deplaning and baggage and flight crew categories. The airline won a four of five circles rating in the in-flight services and cost & fees category.
Continental earned five of five circles in the cost and fees, in-flight services and overall satisfaction categories on the Power survey. It ranked four of five in the other areas of the survey.
At the bottom of the survey results in the traditional airline category was United Airlines.
In the low-cost carrier ranks, New York's JetBlue Airways took top honors, followed by Southwest Airlines, Frontier
Airlines and AirTran Airways.
Overall, the survey firm noted, satisfaction with domestic airlines was the lowest in three years.
"The study finds that satisfaction with 'people' factors, including knowledge,courtesy and helpfulness of reservation and gate agents, check-in staff and flight crew, has declined dramatically since 2007 and is the leading contributing factor to the overall decline incustomer satisfaction with airlines in 2008," the survey company said.
Alaska spokesman Paul McElroy said the airline's "genuine, caring employees" were a major factor in the airline's ranking.
Only Alaska and Air Canada among the tradtional carriers improved their rankings this year over 2007.
