In the coming days, Alaska Airlines will once again transition to having an all-Boeing fleet…
Alaska Airlines completes Airbus jet retirements
Historically Alaska Airlines has operated an all-Boeing fleet, which was a point of pride, given that the airline is based in Seattle. That changed in late 2016, when Alaska acquired Virgin America, which operated an all-Airbus fleet.
In late 2020, Alaska revealed plans to retire Airbus aircraft by 2023, as part of a major fleet simplification plan. As of that time, the airline had nearly 70 Airbus jets, including 10 A319s, 49 A320s, and 10 A321neos. Over the past couple of years we’ve seen Alaska retire A319s and A320s, meaning that at the moment, the only remaining Airbus jets are the A321neos.
Even those planes will no longer be in Alaska’s fleet as of next week. Alaska will operate its final Airbus A321neo flight on Saturday, September 30, 2023. Specifically, Alaska’s last Airbus flight will be AS1126 from Seattle to Los Angeles.
That means that as of October 1, Alaska will once again exclusively have Boeing 737s in its mainline fleet. The airline has also ordered quite a few 737 MAXs, to help fuel future growth.
Are Alaska’s Airbus A321neos headed to American?
Alaska’s Airbus A321neos are young, and are an average of under five years old. They were all delivered to the airline in 2018 and 2019, well after the merger between Alaska and Virgin America was completed. Alaska never really wanted these jets, but didn’t have a way to get out of that order.
Understandably, Alaska’s plan isn’t to simply park these planes to maturity and just make lease payments until then, but rather the airline has been looking for a new home for these aircraft. So, what’s going to happen to these planes?
The always knowledgable @xJonNYC reports that these A321neos will be joining American Airlines’ fleet. While this hasn’t been formally announced, he says he’s 100% sure, so I’d take him at his word. We can expect American to take control of these planes as of October 2023, and then they should be in service before next summer.
Interestingly American reportedly plans to initially keep Alaska’s interiors, so these should be the American aircraft with the best domestic first class experience, given the amount of legroom.
The whole way that airlines go about fleet strategy is fascinating to me, since there’s so much at play. Alaska has retired nearly 70 Airbus jets that presumably could have been used to continue to grow, and the airline probably could have made money flying these planes.
But there are so many other considerations, and at times I wonder if airlines make the right choices. It’s hard to know exactly what the future will look like, and often these decisions are driven by accounting benefits to retiring certain jets, being able to secure good financing terms on new jets, etc.
For example, during the pandemic, American retired its 757s, 767s, and A330s. Was retiring the A330s really the right move, when we’ve seen a big rebound in international travel, those planes were just recently refurbished, and American has had issues with Boeing aircraft delivery delays? Admittedly hindsight is 20/20, but sometimes you’ve gotta wonder…
Bottom line
Alaska Airlines will retire its last Airbus A321neo on September 30, 2023, and at that point the airline will no longer have any Airbus jets. The airline will then again proudly have an all-Boeing mainline fleet. This has been quite a project, as the airline has retired nearly 70 Airbus jets in the past couple of years.
While it hasn’t been formally announced, these 10 aircraft are apparently headed to American, and should enter service before next summer.
What do you make of Alaska retiring its Airbus A321neos?
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