Alaska Air Ends 30-Year Tradition of Prayer Cards With Meals
EmailAfter 30 years of giving passengers prayer cards with their meals, Alaska Airlines notified customers via email they would end the practice next week.
“Religious beliefs are deeply personal and sharing them with others is an individual choice,” according to Wednesday’s email, signed by airline CEO Bill Ayer and President Brad Tilden.
The cards, which feature excerpts from the Old Testament, have always received mixed reviews from customers. The feedback had been mostly positive until a shift in public opinion in recent years.
“Some customers were comforted by the cards and some didn’t feel religion was appropriate on the plane and preferred not to receive one,” an Alaska Airlines spokeswoman told the Associated Press.
Twitter was buzzing today about the news, with the majority in support of the airline’s decision. But the decision is not without its critics: “A shame Alaska Air decided to stop passing out prayer cards because of ‘complaints’ by presumably ‘tolerant’ customers,” @catholiclawyer tweeted.
Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com and author of a travel column that appears on ABCNews.com, doubts that Alaska Airlines will experience much backlash from the decision. “For the handful of front-cabin folks served meals with a card, I am sure they will see the predicament that Alaska is in and not hold it against them,” he said.
Alaska Airlines stopped serving meals in economy class in 2006. Since then, only first-class customers received the prayer cards with their meals.
Alaska Airlines released its 2011 full-year income this morning, reporting record net income of $287.4 million (excluding special items), compared to $262.6 million in 2010, up nearly 10 percent.
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About time. I only flew Alaska Air once back in the early 90′s. They gave me one of those cards on my food tray. I remember thinking how inappropriate. They have passengers from all over the world and all different faiths, why on earth did they think all of their passengers would appreciate their proselytizing?
Posted by: Jim | January 26, 2012, 12:43 pm 12:43 pm
Because Alaska Airline is a United States company and the U.S. was founded and established on Christian principles. One of those Christian principles are for us to go to the four corners of the earth and preach the gospel! They took God out of schools, now we have drug sniffing dogs and school shootings, take God out of business and that business will soon be bankrupt, take God out of the U.S. and His hand of protection will be lifted and her enemies will destroy her!
Posted by: Choconet | January 26, 2012, 1:09 pm 1:09 pm
Don’t you know the “tolerant” are really only tolerant of those with their same views…
Posted by: southerngrl100 | January 26, 2012, 1:15 pm 1:15 pm
I think this is rather sad. Although I’m a Christian and would not mind receiving a card, if I wasn’t, I’d probably just quickly look at it and dismiss it without any type of emotional thought. I would do and feel the same were the card Hebrew, Islam, Buddhist, et alia.
Posted by: MyTakeOnThis61 | January 26, 2012, 1:30 pm 1:30 pm
I’ve eaten airline food. I can totally relate with praying prior to eating it. Guess we will all have to pray on our own now.
Posted by: Catherine | January 26, 2012, 2:11 pm 2:11 pm
I think it is very sad that every little voice holds great weight than that of Christians. One voice complains and they get rid of it for anything Christian. Shame on these people that are changing everything in the USA including our language and guess what they are making us pay for it.
Posted by: Shirley | January 26, 2012, 2:35 pm 2:35 pm
Fantastic! Christians need to learn that theirs is not the only religion in the U.S. Why do they think that the First Amendment does not apply to them??
Posted by: Shannon | January 26, 2012, 2:53 pm 2:53 pm
If you were the praying type, wouldn’t you say your OWN prayer, without the need of a card? Who wants to be indoctrinated while traveling on an airplane? It would be a far different story if you had booked a flight on Christian Air.
What would you think if a passenger asked the pilot to point the plane towards Mecca for a few minutes to do their Muslim prayers?
Posted by: eric | January 26, 2012, 3:12 pm 3:12 pm
For crying out loud, people! Get a grip! They’re just cards, not a fanatical Jehovah’s Witness backing your eight year old into a corner and shoving a Watchtower magazine in his face! Read the card, don’t read the card, do as you please. Pray if it suits you, or trust to whatever it is that holds the plane in the air. Your right to your non-belief doesn’t trump my right to share belief.
Posted by: Andy | January 26, 2012, 5:59 pm 5:59 pm
Too bad. Every little old fashioned nice thing in the USA is being lost,phased out and just gone—
and “multi-cultural” doesn’t work and it’s over-rated.
Posted by: lori | January 27, 2012, 12:30 am 12:30 am
Greetings -
Alaska Airlines caved to the pressure when they received complaints from some passengers. Now the passengers who appreciated the prayer cards are no longer able to receive them on Alaska Airlines.
It is GOD’S air that we all breathe. If it weren’t for Him, the complainers would not have the breath to complain. All you had to do, people, is not read the cards. Your selfish unreasonable complaints have now prevented those who were inclined to read the cards.
GOD is certainly NOT pleased. I wouldn’t be surprised if He allowed you complainers to experience some major airplane turbulence to prove His displeasure relative to your ungodly action. In such a case, it wouldn’t surprise me either if you craved the very prayer cards that you were instrumental in cancelling.
Be not deceived, GOD is not mocked – Galatians 6:7. That is from the Holy Bible, the same place that the messages on the prayer cards comes from.
Certainly, I’ll pray for you to come to reverence the only true and living GOD – the most High. If you don’t, for sure, He’s not pressed or desperate. He is love and invites people to choose Him for absolute peace, joy and contentment – forever.
Friday January 27, 2012
Posted by: lioneagle | January 27, 2012, 8:33 am 8:33 am
Good, favoring one religion over all the others needs to be stopped. Are Christians too feeble to able to pray on their own? Or is an instruction manual necessary. If its such a big deal, bring your bibles if you need a verse or two.
Posted by: Molls | January 28, 2012, 9:31 pm 9:31 pm
Alaska Airlines is a great airline, so it is all the more sad to see them capitulate to the intolerance and censorship of the anti-Christians. Everytime I fly — especially when at 39,000 feet halfway between Greenland and Iceland — I thank the Living God, the Judeo-Christian God of Israel, for the mind-exploding ability to cross an ocean in hours (while eating good food, watching a good movie, having a good beer, napping at times) that used to take months and would see the death of many fellow voyagers. We have it so good, and yet refuse to thank the One who has given us life and every breath we take … as well as the rule of law, technology, and order that makes this comfort possible.
Posted by: Ed | January 31, 2012, 3:08 pm 3:08 pm