Alaska Airlines Majorly Simplifying Fleet

By: Ben Schlappig

Updated: April 30, 2023
Published: March 24, 2022

84 comments

Alaska Airlines has revealed plans to significantly simplify its fleet by next year, and this involves retiring quite a few planes.

In this post:

Alaska Airlines retiring A320-family & Q400 aircraft

Alaska Airlines has announced that by the end of 2023, the Seattle-based carrier’s fleet will consist exclusively of Boeing 737s for mainline flights, and Embraer E175s for regional flights. This means that the airline will retire all Airbus A320-family jets, plus all Bombardier Q400 turboprops.

For context, the current fleet of Alaska Airlines and wholly owned subsidiary Horizon Air consists of 320+ planes, including the following:

35 Airbus A320s
10 Airbus A321neos
11 Boeing 737-700s
61 Boeing 737-800s
91 Boeing 737-900s
16 Boeing 737 MAX 9s
63 Embraer E175s
32 Bombardier Q400s

In addition to the carrier’s current fleet, the airline has nearly 150 planes on order, including the following:

15 Boeing 737 MAX 8s
54 Boeing 737 MAX 9s
60 Boeing 737 MAX 10s
19 Embraer E175s

As it’s described, this fleet simplification decision is “consistent with Alaska’s low-cost high productivity mindset,” and “these transitions are expected to drive significant economic benefits.” Alaska Airlines states that these changes will allow for simplicity, flexibility, scalability, better fuel efficiency, and reduced maintenance costs.

Despite all of these planes being retired, Alaska Airlines’ fleet (including subsidiaries) should consist of 400 aircraft by mid-decade.

Prior to this latest announcement, Alaska had already revealed plans to retire its A320s by the end of 2023. However, this is the first time we’ve definitively heard of the carrier’s plans to retire A321neos and Q400s.

My take on Alaska Airlines’ fleet changes

A few thoughts about Alaska Airlines’ announcement:

Alaska Airlines was already planning on retiring most of its Airbus fleet, so the A321neo retirement doesn’t come as a huge surprise; this jet was ordered by Virgin America pre-merger, and it would probably be pretty inefficient for Alaska Airlines to keep around such a small subfleet
The elimination of Q400s is much more interesting to me, since the Q400 turboprop and E175 jets have the same capacity of 76 seats (though the latter has more comfortable cabins and first class seats)
I wonder if on some level this decision comes down to the general pilot shortage we’re seeing, as it’s especially tough to get pilots to want to work on turboprops nowadays, when they could be working on jets
Even with Alaska Airlines still having some E175s on order, this represents a significant capacity decrease for Alaska’s regional fleet, so I’m curious to see what markets end up getting cut, or if some markets transition to 737s
The Q400 is a pretty polarizing plane — I know some people won’t miss these planes, while others love them

Horizon Air will exclusively operate E175s

Bottom line

Alaska Airlines has revealed plans to significantly simplify its fleet, and by the end of 2023 plans to retire A320s, A321neos, and Q400s. The A320 retirement had previously been announced, but the A321neo and Q400 retirement is new.

From an efficiency standpoint it’s not surprising to see Alaska completely retire its Airbus fleet, especially with the number of Boeing 737 MAXs on order. The Q400 retirement has more implications, as it will significantly reduce capacity in Alaska’s regional fleet. I’m sure many won’t miss this turboprop, though.

What do you make of Alaska Airlines’ fleet changes?

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Azamaraal Guest

August 4, 2022, 9:04 pm

I live in Kelowna (YLW) and the SEA-YLW route has been cut back over the last few years from 3 daily flights to one and now back to 2. I certainly hope that they do not cancel this route but there have been times where flights to YLW have been axed in favour of running a Washington State local run. It used to be a direct connect YLW-SEA-PVR in the winter until they cancelled the 06:00 flight. Now it's an overnight in both directions. Any other routing has at least one overnight on AC or WS. Charters never operate when we need them. Fingers crossed they don't cancel completely.

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Matthew Guest

April 1, 2022, 10:04 am

1: alaska has been with boeing for years so airbus is out of the cards 2: I grew up flying on the Q400. It is my favorite plane. The way I see it Alaska is making a HUGE mistake. They should retire their E175s instead.

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Anne W. Guest

April 1, 2022, 7:56 am

It will be a very sad day in the PNW when all the PAC-12 Q-400 logo planes retire. I hope Alaska will have the foresight to continue this tradition with their Embraer 175's. Go Cougs!

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B Ja Guest

March 31, 2022, 7:41 pm

Alaska Air, makes good business sense for these changes but is risky, they might have to lower some prices at first to get people to fly Alaska for the public that pays attention to the type of aircraft they are getting on...with the troubles of the Max fleet and Boeing management troubles, people who notice will hesitate to fly Alaska...how ever, Boeing is a business to, and they to will get their act together to compete on the world stage, the Max fleet will end up being the safest planes to fly on, and a better purchase deal for other Airlines as well in the years to come. Boeing made gross errors in management and quality control, but so did FAA and FAA approves all civil aviation in US and surrounding international waters, what does that say? I'll fly on Max, will I have slight pause yes, I'm human, but Boeing planes are safe, and even safer now, sorry it took those sad and horrendous mistakes, to wake up. Alaska, good idea.

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Jason Brandt Lewis Guest

March 31, 2022, 12:08 pm

Given my choice, I’d pick an Airbus 320 or 321 over a 737 any day. In fact, I have on several occasions. But while I will certainly miss the Airbus fleet — just as I still miss Virgin America to be honest — this makes total sense from a business perspective: fewer types of spare parts; no need for cross-training of the cockpit crews, nor the FAs or mechanics; etc. In re: the MAX…. I’m of two minds. On the one hand, there clearly WAS something wrong, and people paid with their lives. That is something that Boeing will have to live with, as will the tarnished reputation Boeing now has among large segments of the flying public. OTOH, that plane itself has undergone rigorous testing, as has the software, prior to being “recertified” (or whatever the official terminology is for being allowed — the world over — to fly with passengers once again). I’ve already flown on a MAX and really wouldn’t hesitate to do it again…unless an A320/321 is a viable alternative.

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