Alaska Airlines Will Fly Boeing 787-10s, As It Converts 787-9 Order

It’s a fascinating time for Alaska Air Group, given the merger between Alaska and Hawaiian, which is causing a major strategy shift. We’re seeing Alaska Airlines create a long haul hub out of Seattle-Tacoma (SEA), using former Hawaiian Airlines jets. Along those lines, there’s an interesting update…

Alaska modifies its Boeing 787 Dreamliner order

Pre-merger, Hawaiian had placed a firm order for 12 Boeing 787-9s, and the long term plan is for these to fly for Alaska, out of Seattle. Just a couple of months ago, Alaska revealed it would boost this order, adding five additional frames, meaning there are now 17 of these jets on order.

That’s not all that has changed, though. Alaska has also swapped the variants for some of these orders — five of the 787-9 orders have been swapped to the larger 787-10 variant. That means Alaska now has 12 787-9s and five 787-10s on order.

This was initially reported by Seeking Alpha last week, but at the time, many of us weren’t sure if it was accurate, since it wasn’t reported elsewhere, and seemingly wasn’t based on any public filings. So there’s now an update, as Alaska has confirmed that it has converted some 787-9 orders into 787-10s. The airline states it will share more details about this in the near future.

For those not familiar, the 787-10 is the largest variant of the Dreamliner. While it has the least range of any Dreamliner variant, the per-seat economics are great, given how it’s “stretched.” Furthermore, the plane’s range has nicely been expanded since it first launched, thanks to incremental improvements.

Among US airlines, United operates the 787-10, Delta is expected to order the 787-10, and I have to imagine that at some point, American will also order the 787-10 (as it eventually makes a decision about 777 replacement plans).

This seems like a logical development for Alaska

The Boeing 787-10 seems like the perfect plane for Alaska, especially given Seattle’s geography. For context, the 787-9 officially has a range of 8,700 miles, while the 787-10 officially has a range of 7,300 miles. Of course let me emphasize that doesn’t mean the planes can fly routes quite that long, since it doesn’t factor in fuel reserves, winds, variations between configurations, etc.

Still, 7,300 miles from Seattle covers a vast majority of destinations that Alaska could want to serve, including everything in Europe, as well as much of Asia. The only thing that potentially wouldn’t be within range is destinations like Australia, India, and Singapore, but those can be flown by the 787-9.

Given the great per-seat economics, plus Alaska’s ability to eventually fill long haul seats given its strong hub, upgrading to the larger plane makes sense.

I think the only challenge is going to be to have two relatively small subfleets, which isn’t ideal in terms of aircraft scheduling, spares in the event of irregular operations, etc. A fleet of just five planes doesn’t offer much scale. Then again, who knows, maybe Alaska will significantly increase its Dreamliner fleet over time, beyond what has been announced so far.

Bottom line

Alaska Air Group recently boosted its Boeing 787 order from 12 to 17 frames. Not only that, but Alaska has made those incremental orders for the 787-10, rather than the 787-9. That makes perfect sense, given the 787-10’s great unit costs. Ideally you’d have a larger and more uniform fleet, but at the margins, this order is logical.

What do you make of Alaska ordering the Boeing 787-10?