There’s A New Airline In Town

I was fortunate enough to be guest of Northern Pacific Airways (NP) in San Bernardino, California on Tuesday night when they unveiled their livery on their aircraft of choice to cross the Pacific, the Boeing 757-200.

This was my first time doing an unveiling and it was quite the pleasure.

The new airline is based in Anchorage, Alaska and is run by Rob McKinney who has an impressive aviation resume. At one point, he ran Hawaii-based Mokulele Airlines. He currently running Northern Pacific Airways and RAVN Alaska. Read More on McKinney and his team.

What’s The Big Idea?

McKinney and team has done extensive research into the numbers and have come up with some markets.

The idea is to connect passengers from the lower 48 U.S. states via Anchorage, Alaska to Asia. And of course take local Alaskans as well. He currently operates RAVN Alaska which flies around the state of Alaska, so it can feed Northern.

Today, Alaskans have to fly to Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles or other U.S. hub cities to get to Asia, and then sometimes fly over Alaska again, so this new service will save them quite a bit of time.

Airplane Configuration

The interior of the airplane is still being designed, but we did get a look at the designed including the seats, but of course the final look may be different. They are thinking of a three class setup: Business Class, Economy Plus and Economy Class. Nothing ground breaking here. We will have to wait for the pitch and all that good stuff.

Business Class Seats, Northern Pacific Airways

Economy Class Seats, Northern Pacific Airways

Planned Destinations

We’re looking at Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka (KIX) in Japan and Seoul in South Korea, said the CEO when interviewed by Joanna Bailey, Managing Editor at Simple Flying. All these are subject to government approval of course, he added.

U.S. cities would be Orlando, Florida (MCO); Los Angeles, California (LAX); San Francisco, California (SFO); Las Vegas, Nevada (LAS) and New York.

Stay tuned for official announcements…