Boy, Alaska Air is having a hard time of it lately. Within the past few years they’ve suffered through several public humiliations: cabin depressurization, punched holes in luggage compartment, profit decline leading to a major stock-value decline, and now this:

An Alaska Boeing 737 carrying 117 passengers to Washington, D.C., was pushing back from its gate when its left winglet made contact with another Alaska jet, said airline spokeswoman Amanda Tobin Bielawski.

As reported in the Seattle Times, the departing plane was slowly backing away from the gate when it bumped the other plane, damaging its winglet in the process. The tail horizontal stabilizer of the parked plane was also damaged. Both planes require repair before they can go in the air again and, boy, those winglets aren’t cheap.

Considering that this coming weekend is one of the busiest air-traffic weekends of the year (Sea-Tac officials advise you to show up for your flight at least two hours early and expect delays, anyway), here’s hoping that no other Alaska planes get knocked out of service any time soon.

As an aside, I’d like to mention that I think the Alaska Airlines team-up with the Washington State Lottery to offer a scratch ticket that gives gamblers the shot at two million Alaska Airlines rewards miles is a clever marketing idea. That would get you anywhere Alaska flies, I think.