Alaska Airlines will introduce flat bed "Aurora Suites" business class on select Boeing 737 MAX 10s, plus a new premium economy cabin, starting in 2028.
This is a necessary and positive development, in that if AS is serious about being a competitive force on transcontinental service, specifically to high dollar value destinations and markets, it needs flat beds and an elevated, premium experience. The absence of these is partly what led it to fail on JFK-LAX as an example.
This is also a sign that the A321NEOs inherited from HA won't be deployed on routes like this in reconfigured cabins and will either remain the mainstay of secondary US mainland to Hawaii or will eventually be phased out entirely.
The future of Alaska Airlines though remains a bit cloudy. It certainly has the upper hand in the SEA market vs. Delta. It is bigger, has more local traffic, and the long game favors them, not DL, but it likely will find itself in the arms of American Airlines through some sort of merger in a few years, and its c-suite will eventually dominate the Ft. Worth c-suite.
This is huge! One of the main things holding back AS was their lack of a competitive premium product for 5+ hour redeyes on single-aisle aircraft. Once this goes live, they'll be competing side-by-side with B6 Mint, D1, AA Flagship, and UA Polaris. I'm genuinely excited to try this product, and glad to see more options coming in this specific market segment.
I'll add, as others have started to mention elsewhere, if AS can put these on SEA and PDX to NYC and elsewhere, they'll make up for where there's a real dearth of actual premium (lie-flat) 5+ hour transcon redeyes. Sure, DL occasionally puts a 75S with 2-2 older D1 on JFK-SEA, and B6 does as well (or to YVR), but that's rare these days. It should become a daily offering on each with AS once this goes live. I'll be thrilled once that happens.
Hopefully this alters your perspective on whether there is true long-term benefit to the average consumer (not loyalty-obsessed consumers) for an AS-AA merger. It reinforces to me that AA should come nowhere near this airline.
@ Kelly -- No, if anything, it reinforces for me that Alaska management has a strategy, and they should be running American. 🙂
Indeed, but because AA is larger than AS, they would be the acquirer, and chances of any of the AS c-suite surviving that are sketchy at best. AA Board will protect their own, however incompetent they may be. Certainly could be wrong on that, but I wouldn't want to chance it. Think AS-B6 makes more sense, although that also seems unlikely. After today's presser by AS, I'm liking them staying independent. I like their strategy, we will just need to see how it plays out. Nobody's perfect! ;^)
@ Kelly -- I mean, let's keep in mind that American is run by the America West management team, so that definitely wasn't a case of the bigger airline getting the surviving management team.
Fair point. Stand corrected.
Still...think AS has their hands full with integration, and are being thoughtful. Still JCBAs left to complete for pilots and FAs.
You need to look at the fares @Ben, Alaska was getting clapped on SEA transcon routes. They're the lowest fare carrier on many on them.
Look up the FC prices on SEA to JFK. Delta routinely was getting double or more, easily in the 3k range. Unless Alaska radically changed up their product, they weren't going to be able to catch up.
Alaska is evolving, not sure why the suspicion.
@ yoloswag420 -- First of all, I don't know what "suspicion" you're talking about. I think Alaska is a very well run airline, and wondering exactly what the strategy is (rather than claiming to know everything) isn't suspicion, as I see it.
Regarding Alaska not getting good yields on transcon routes... is that really true? I mean, obviously Delta has a lot more pricing power between SEA and JFK, given the number of premium passengers on that route who are connecting to a transatlantic Delta flight. No matter how good the product is, the dynamic won't change for connecting passengers.
However, in other markets, I'm noticing comparable pricing, including to DCA, BOS, etc. Or is there something I'm missing?
You dedicated a long section talking about this: "Alaska claims that it plans to use its premium 737 MAXs to operate transcon routes. What’s interesting is that I’m not sure to what extent that’s needed based on current competitive dynamics..."
So that's what I'm interpreting as you being dubious about it. If you look up the DOT fare data, it's true. Alaska is typically the lowest fare carrier on most routes longer than 2000 miles from SEA.
Regarding specific routes, BOS is a legacy JetBlue Mint route, so there's justification for having it. Alaska does do very good at DCA, but note that Delta has been using D1 configured 757s frequently on this route as well, even if only marketed as First Class.
I'd also add that I'd expect SEA to see some United Coastliners at some point too, so Alaska is preparing for that eventuality.
The biggest add is to do what United does at SFO, which is allow one-stop connectivity to the full TPAC network in full Polaris, this is the same for Alaska at SEA.
At any rate, the YouTube video has a flight map showing all stations getting them SEA/PDX/SFO/LAX/SAN to what looks to be the Northeast, so likely JFK, and then maybe BOS/DCA.
Ben - looks like there will be seat back screens in premium economy. The picture directly above where you ask has a rendering and the announcement says PE will have a “16-inch 4K OLED entertainment screen with Bluetooth connectivity.”
@ Amit M -- Yep, that has been confirmed, my question is about economy seat back entertainment, since I don't think that's covered?
Given the ship's range, it could also be employed in each West Coast city to/from Hawaii.
@ Lee -- That was initially a thought I had as well, but the airline is explicit in saying it'll be used for transcon routes.
Ben, it appears this is the new Elevate Ascent Narrowbody. Elevate (Adient) with United designed the seat for them bespoke, but this is their more generally available non-bespoke seat, and it looks very nice
Is it me or are they already mimicking AAs new colour scheme in the seats? A great way to keep costs down during the merger 😂
Looks fantastic. Big fan of the 737-10 (what's planned). Can't wait.
With their new investments into the 737 MAX 10 and 787, would it even make sense to keep the Hawaiian A321neos and A330-300 around for the long term? I think fleet consistency would be a simpler move as they take more deliveries and can streamline maintenance crews, processes and pilot allocations. Very excited to see how Alaska grows in the next decade though
@ cloudypie -- The plan is to still keep separate Alaska and Hawaiian branding, so I imagine the A330s and A321neos will continue to fly for Hawaiian. And since there will be different branding on the planes, there's a need for subfleets anyway. At least they'll be consolidated in one base, which will be efficient.
Just fyi, their YouTube announcement highlights all 5 hubs getting premium transcon to the Northeast.
They also state getting at least 25 of these aircraft, which translates to 37ish round-trips.
I'm expecting some combination of JFK/DCA as those are the primary shared destinations from those hubs. Not sure if Alaska would relaunch LAX to JFK though. BOS/EWR could also work