Northern Pacific deserves credit for being the newest passenger airline in the United States. Unfortunately the carrier’s inaugural flight didn’t exactly go off without a hitch, which is always the challenge with an airline using a single aircraft.
Continue reading: Northern Pacific’s Botched Inaugural Flight
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Why is reimbursing expenses incurred as a result of the cancelation, including rebooking on another airline, generous ?
That is standard for a tech irrop under EC/UK261 and damages under the Montreal convention
I predicted their 1st flight would be delayed/xxld one a week with no back up lol
@ icarus -- Well, what's generous is reports that the airline basically said "book whatever you want and we'll pay for it." That's how it should be, but you also know that a lot of other airlines try to get cheap and cut costs, keep people standing around claiming that the flight might leave in X number of hours, when that's just not realistic.
Why do US airlines have such difficulty understanding that running your airline with old planes is a terrible idea, will damage your brand reputation and result in bad customer reviews? This has Legend Airlines written all over it.
Book anything?
I think the best way to get from LAS to LA is via BA F with a stop at LHR 😀
This horrible business idea was doomed to begin with. Operate a sole 200 mile flight on a 28 year old plane with terrible economics. Where do these people come from and why are they taken seriously by others providing financial support?
Can someone help me understand why Russian airspace being closed makes it prohibitive to fly from Anchorage to East Asia? Playing with GCMap.com it looks like it wouldn't be that hard to fly around Russian airspace to get to Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, etc... isn't that what flights from the mainland US do to get to those destinations these days anyway? Thanks for the explanation.
The inaugural flight was delayed due to air traffic congestion in Las Vegas... Is it that hard to do your research before making another blog post?
So you are saying there was 24 hours of too much traffic in the skies? It would have only been delayed briefly if that were the case. What you are saying is illogical
You'd thought being an Inaugural flight, maintenance would have been on the airplane, engine run ups etc just to make sure it was 100%.
Reminds me about how Carnival Cruise Line was the laughingstock of the cruise industry for years when their inaugural cruise ran aground. Still, look at them now.
maybe they were trying to emphasize that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!
I believe this is mainly meant to iron out their operational links and get the crew familiar while they wait to start the Asia-Anchorage flights. Those have been delayed (not cancelled) as the closure of Russian airspace meant they had to get the aircraft and their operations ETOPS certified (not a fast process and not in the original plan)
They said they were not going to run ETOPS, which means they need to be able to use Russian airspace and airports in the event of an emergency. Even with ETOPS, I'm not sure their 757s will qualify for a long enough time on one engine to be able to bypass / ignore Russian airspace. It is possible to fly as you mentioned, around the airspace, but you have to have a plane capable of doing it (and doing it within regulation). I don't think these planes will be it.
Maybe the 757s don’t have ETOPs which could be a problem if they avoid Russia because they would have no choice but to fly over the Pacific. They were probably hoping they could get away with not having ETOPs by having their network fly over the coastline which wouldn’t add too much time on flights to/from ANC. Also, as an American airline, they might be concerned about having to divert to Russia in case of an emergency.
I don’t think they bought 757’s that are ETOPS certified (not certified to fly long distance over water basically.
So they bought an aircraft that is not capable of their intended plan.
Pretty broad assumption. The average age of US airlines planes is slightly higher, but that doesn't result in more delays or cancelations industry wide. Infrastructure is the bigger problem. Outdated systems like what Southwest uses, contribute more to their problem than aircraft issues. Properly maintained, a 20 year old airframe will do just fine. Only having one airplane in your fleet is a real issue, especially if the plane is 28 years old.
No, the ONT-LAS was delayed due to LAS runway construction and traffic flow. Not the LAS-ONT inaugural.