Last year, as recession-spooked passengers booked fewer flights, carriers like Alaska Airlines cut back on routes and flights. In 2009 the Seattle-based airline furloughed 106 pilots -- about seven percent of its total staff of aviators.

"Less hours to fly, less pilots needed," said Paul Stuart, a vice chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association's Alaska Airlines chapter.

But as the economy starts to get back on its feet and people start moving around the country again, Alaska Airlines is calling some of those furloughed pilots back to work. On May 1, according to ALPA, 12 Alaska Airlines pilots will be going back to work -- all of them based in Anchorage.

The pilots furloughed from Alaska Airlines were those with the least seniority, and so were more likely to have young families at home. Furloughed pilots received some furlough pay -- equal to their base salary -- for a certain number of months depending on how long they had worked at the company.

Furloughed pilots were also able to keep their health insurance, paying 20 percent of their premiums for three months (with Alaska Airlines paying the other 80 percent), Stuart said, but if pilots wanted to keep the insurance after that they had to pay 100 percent of the cost.

ALPA, a labor union representing 53,000 airline pilots in the U.S. and Canada, instituted a number of programs to soften the blow for furloughed Alaska Airlines pilots. Pilots who were still working chipped in so the Furloughed Pilots Christmas Fund could give about $200 to each grounded pilot, and the union organized a health care fund paid into by all Alaska Airlines pilots to help furloughed pilots with their health insurance premiums.

A pilot's pay can range from $46,000 for a first year co-pilot to $174,000 for a captain who has been flying for 12 years. Besides the 106 pilots furloughed last year, some captains were downgraded to co-pilot. A co-pilot makes about two-thirds the pay of a captain.

Alaska isn't the only airline that's been cutting back; American Airlines has 1,800 pilots on furlough, and in January announced it would furlough 175 more. According to Aviation Week, United Airlines currently has more than 1,100 furloughed pilots.

Stuart said while it's unclear how quickly the other furloughed pilots will be recalled to work, he was confident that as traffic continued to increase Alaska Airlines would have jobs for all of them.

"(Alaska) won't hire any new pilots until all of these folks have had the opportunity to return," he said.

Contact Joshua Saul at jsaul(at)alaskadispatch.com.