Alaska Airlines has grown over its 68-year history from a single three-passenger plane chugging across the tundra to the nation's 10th-biggest carrier, as ranked by Aviation Daily, which closely monitors the industry. The smiling, crinkly-eyed Eskimo whose likeness adorns the tails of the airline's 89 jets is a particularly familiar sight up and down the West Coast, where Alaska is the dominant carrier between the Pacific Northwest and California. The airline, a subsidiary of Alaska Air, based in Seattle, carried 13.1 million passengers in 1998 and now serves 41 cities in the United States, Mexico and Canada. The airline has more than 9,200 employees and its 1999 sales were $2.08 billion. While it has faced criticism and sanctions from the Federal Aviation Administration for maintenance practices, the airline had not had a fatal crash in more than 25 years until yesterday and is a perennial favorite among customers.