Alaska Airlines is rapidly changing from a whimsical local airline into a big business that has to compete on dreary criteria like on-time arrival. The transition parallels Cascadia’s changes amid globalization.

One sign of the shift for the Seattle-based airline is the replacement of older planes.

Friday’s Wall Street Journal ($) has a wistful story of the “Arctic Eagles” who piloted old 737-200 jets into Alaska’s small towns, supplying a lifeline of everything from groceries and medical supplies to tourists. Now they have to get used to new, more automated planes and deal with routine demands of flying in the Lower 48.

Although new route assignments will take the Anchorage-based pilots to sunny destinations like Cancún, Mexico, and Palm Springs, Calif., the pilots say they’ll miss the old challenges and the camaraderie with crew members and local passengers.

I remember riding one of the old planes into Kodiak and noticing then that the feel of the cabin and the on-board atmosphere was different from the Seattle-to-Anchorage flight. One captain, who co-piloted a landing in Juneau that took 10 approaches, told the WSJ that flying planes that get “food on the table in Nome” will always be more rewarding than “getting a bunch of irate people to Newark.”