Humor from horror: Alaska Airlines takes jokes for Boeing blunder

Alaska Airlines has been made the butt of recent jokes after a door plug blew off one its planes in mid-air earlier this month, though the issue originated with the plane's manufacturer.

This past weekend, Saturday Night Live featured a mock ad for Alaska Airlines with the slogan, "You didn't die and you got a cool story."

"You know those bolts that, like, hold the plane together? We're gonna go ahead and tighten some of those," SNL guest host Jacob Elordi said, referencing an issue airlines found on other planes in their fleets after the Boeing 737 MAX 9 was grounded.

RELATED: FAA says airlines should check the door plugs on another model of Boeing plane

Alaska and United Airlines, both of which have the 737 MAX 9 in their fleets, have found planes with loose bolts. Alaska and United are the only U.S. carriers that fly the plane with the piece that detached mid-air.

But that issue isn't an airline problem as the SNL skit seemed to suggest.

“We know there are problems with manufacturing,” FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker told CNBC on Jan. 12. “There have been problems in the past, but these are continuing. The aircraft that was involved in the accident last week on Alaska was less than three months old, so this is a brand-new aircraft. It has just come off the line, and it had significant problems, and we believe there are other manufacturing problems as well.”

The FAA subsequently announced it would audit Boeing’s Seattle-area 737 Max 9 production lines.

Some of the jokes that have taken off from the door plug fiasco have called attention to both the manufacturing issue and the awkward — and potentially legally troublesome — position the incident has put Alaska in.

Seattle's local "real fake newsroom" The Needling took a more nuanced satirical swing in a piece titled "Alaska Airlines Changes 'Proudly All Boeing' Signs on Planes to 'Oops! All Boeings'," as its latest jab.

The door plug incident has also reminded critics of another recent episode that put Alaska Airlines in the hot seat, or rather the jump seat.

"We're the same airline where a pilot tried to turn off the engine mid-flight while on mushrooms, and now, we're so proud to say that's our second-worst flight," Kenan Thompson said in SNL's skit before the screen cut to another mock slogan: "Alaska, still better than Spirit."

RELATED: Class action lawsuit against Alaska Airlines in wake of pilot emergency

Like the core of the skit, this line was half right. An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot who admitted to taking psychedelic mushrooms tried to shut off the engines on a flight operated by Horizon Airlines in October.

Whether audiences care about the nuance or not, though, Alaska Airlines is still left dealing with a public relations nightmare that could have been much worse.