When Alaska Airways acquired Hawaiian Airways in 2024, the imaginative and prescient was clear: Alaska needed to solidify its place because the fifth-largest U.S. airline and develop into a bona fide international provider able to transporting passengers all around the world.
Simply days into 2026, it is evident that target progress stays a high precedence.
On Wednesday, Alaska Airways introduced that it reached a deal to purchase 110 new airplanes from Boeing between now and 2035.
It’s the most important plane order within the Seattle-based provider’s historical past, and it’ll see the corporate proceed to depend on the U.S. planemaker — its Pacific Northwest neighbor — for its plane for years to return.
Alaska Airways’ splashy, new Boeing deal
Headlining the deal is Alaska Airways’ buy of 105 new Boeing 737 MAX 10 jets — Boeing’s largest 737 MAX variant that’s presently awaiting certification from regulators.
Alaska additionally formally agreed to buy 5 extra Boeing 787 Dreamliners, particularly opting to go along with Boeing’s largest 787-10 model of the long-haul airplane.
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The deal probably represents a multibillion-dollar funding by Alaska Air Group, and it’ll gas “regular, scalable and sustained progress,” the corporate mentioned Wednesday in an announcement saying the information.
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“These planes will gas our growth to extra locations throughout the globe and guarantee our company journey aboard the most recent, most fuel-efficient and state-of-the-art plane,” Alaska Airways CEO Ben Minicucci mentioned.
As a part of the deal, Alaska additionally retains choices to buy 35 extra MAX 10 jets over the following 9 years.
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What to learn about Alaska Airways’ new planes
As soon as in Alaska’s fleet, the MAX 10 would be the provider’s largest single-aisle plane, and the 787-10 Dreamliner will probably be its largest twin-aisle jet.
Boeing 737 MAX 10
The MAX 10 can seat between 188 and 204 passengers in a two-cabin (firstclass and coach) configuration, based on Boeing’s web site.
That can give Alaska a bit extra seating capability on its highest-demand flights over its present narrow-body jets; its Boeing 737-900 and MAX 9s can seat a complete of 178 passengers.
When will its first MAX 10 are available in? That can probably hinge on how quickly Boeing lastly wins certification for the plane. The MAX 10 has been delayed as a result of an anti-icing problem that the planemaker has been working to repair for years.
Every of the “Large Three” legacy carriers within the U.S. — American Airways, Delta Air Traces and United Airways — even have excellent orders for the MAX 10.
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Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner
In the meantime, this plane deal will give Alaska Airways a complete of 17 Dreamliners because it workout routines all choices with Boeing for the wide-body airplane.
That is on high of Dreamliners the provider already has available and within the pipeline.
In buying Hawaiian, Alaska took over Hawaiian’s small brand-new fleet of Boeing 787-9s — which sport glossy, new business-class suites — and its order ebook for extra Dreamliners.
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Now, Alaska can add the bigger 787-10 to its fleet, as has been rumored for months. It will give the airline dozens extra seats on worldwide flights out of its Seattle-Tacoma Worldwide Airport (SEA) residence base.
It might additionally enable Alaska to deploy a extra premium-heavy configuration on its flagship routes — a selected functionality of the 787-10 that Boeing has touted.
“I feel with, within the case of 787-10, we’re seeing airways with a a lot increased premium structure,” Darren Hulst, Boeing’s vice chairman of business advertising and marketing, informed TPG on the planemaker’s Renton, Washington, manufacturing facility final summer time. “It’s simply extra alternative to ship a premium product … that form of units them aside within the market.”
Alaska has 5 787-9s flying in the present day. It expects to function at the very least 12 long-haul routes from SEA by 2030, Minicucci has repeatedly mentioned.
Backside line
At this time, Alaska Air Group has 413 whole plane between its Alaska- and Hawaiian-branded fleets. It expects to develop to 475 plane by 2030 and to at the very least 550 plane by 2035.
Most of the new 737 MAX jets will change growing old 737s due for retirement within the coming years, the provider mentioned.
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