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.
In this post:
Northern Pacific’s return inaugural canceled due to mechanical issue
Within the past week, Northern Pacific has launched scheduled passenger service. Currently the carrier’s network is a once weekly flight between Ontario (ONT) and Las Vegas (LAS). The airline operates the short 197-mile flight from Ontario to Las Vegas on Fridays, and the return flight on Sundays, using a Boeing 757-200.
Well, the inaugural to Las Vegas wasn’t that unreliable, and only operated just under an hour late (and that might have just been due to pre-flight festivities). Maybe the Northern Pacific Boeing 757 just partied too hard while parked in Las Vegas over the weekend, as the aircraft ended up having mechanical issues on its inaugural flight to Ontario.
While the return flight was supposed to operate on Sunday afternoon, it ended up getting canceled. Reports suggest that Northern Pacific was at least pretty generous with passengers, in offering to reimburse them for expenses incurred as a result of the cancelation, including rebooking on another airline. Hopefully the airline pays up. The plane ended up being ferried back to Ontario about 24 hours behind schedule, but without passengers.
This was ultimately probably just bad luck. I mean, the airline is operating a 28-year-old Boeing 757, so maintenance issues are bound to come up. It’s just especially unfortunate when it happens on one of the carrier’s inaugural flights.
It’s even worse when you consider that the plane had been on the ground for two days, and it’s not like the aircraft had high utilization recently. The plane had literally only flown around 200 miles in commercial service before breaking down. Ouch.
This is also one of the general challenges when booking with a newer or smaller airline, with a limited fleet. If a flight with a major airline has an issue, it’s usually possible to find a replacement aircraft. That’s much harder here.
What’s next for Northern Pacific?
The concept of Northern Pacific offering just once weekly service between Ontario and Las Vegas is strange, and among the worst aircraft utilization you’ll find anywhere.
Keep in mind that Northern Pacific was initially supposed to be an airline flying between the United States and Asia via its hub in Anchorage. However, the closure of Russian airspace has put that plan on pause for now. We’ve seen Northern Pacific throw around all kinds of other concepts, from flying to Mexico, to being based in Saipan.
With Northern Pacific’s once weekly service, I can’t help but assume that the carrier’s strategy might just be to operate charter services for the foreseeable future, perhaps hoping for government charter traffic.
The closest comparison would be Eastern Airlines, which has a fleet of Boeing 767s and 777s. The airline has a once monthly flight between Miami (MIA) and Santo Domingo (SQD), and it’s my understanding that the reason for this flight is that having at least once monthly service makes the airline eligible to operate government charters, which seems to be the primary business model of the airline at this point.
I’m certainly going to be watching to see how this evolves…
Bottom line
Northern Pacific has finally launched passenger flights this past week, with the airline flying once weekly between Ontario and Las Vegas. Unfortunately the service hasn’t been smooth so far — the outbound inaugural was delayed a bit, and then the return inaugural had to be canceled due to a mechanical issue, so passengers had to be rebooked.
I’m still not sure what to make of this carrier’s plans, as something’s gotta give — a once weekly Ontario to Las Vegas flight isn’t paying the bills.
What do you make of Northern Pacific launching flights?
Ben, why don't they operate ANC-NRT/HND without using Russian airspace?
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.
maybe they were trying to emphasize that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!
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.
Northern Pacific really went SOUTH didn’t they? Wow.
Fake airline, continuing to do fake airline things.
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%.
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
No, the ONT-LAS was delayed due to LAS runway construction and traffic flow. Not the LAS-ONT inaugural.
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.
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.
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?
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)
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.
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.
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.
Book anything?
I think the best way to get from LAS to LA is via BA F with a stop at LHR :D