Alaska Airlines to Offer Boxed Water and Paper Cups on All Flights

Image: Courtesy Alaska Airlines
Good news for Alaska Airlines flyers who drink water: Alaska is now offering boxed water during its inflight water service in an effort to reduce its onboard plastic waste.
The Seattle-based airline announced today that starting November 4 it would trade its plastic water bottles for water in 92 percent plant-based cartons from Michigan-based company Boxed Water Is Better. Also, say goodbye to those tiny single-use plastic cups, as Alaska is swapping those for recyclable paper cups. (Though the big-brain move is to bring your own reusable water bottle and fill it up before the flight, but no one is sending out news releases for doing that, so here we are.)
The shift is part of Alaska’s goal to reduce its inflight waste and achieve net zero emissions by 2040. The airline was already offering Boxed Water to first-class passengers and those on on Alaska's Horizon Air—operated flights. With the change moving to all Alaska flights, the airline estimates it will save 1.8 million pounds of single-use plastics from flights over the next year, and remove 22 million plastic cups and 32 million plastic bottles per year from Alaska flights.
“Although we have an industry-leading recycling program, the reality is that we need to move to renewable options. Getting to this point hasn't been easy,” said Todd Traynor-Corey, managing director of guest products for Alaska Airlines, in a news release. “We investigated several options with our supply chain—and this year we finally found a product our guests love and a partner whose mission-driven values mirror our own.”