America’s newest airline, Northern Pacific Airways, has made its inaugural flight.
The first commercial flight of the new airline was on 14 July from Ontario Airport (ONT) in California to Las Vegas (LAS).
Ontario Airport is about 38 mi (61 km) east of downtown Los Angeles and the airline plans to fly the route every Friday with return flights on Sundays.
Northern Pacific’s real mission is to be the Icelandair of the USA. The Icelandic carrier has been flying very successfully for many years between the USA and Europe via Reykjavik – with 757s.
The vision for Northern Pacific is to operate in a similar manner, linking airports in the USA with Asian destinations in Japan and Korea but via Anchorage.
The airline will be based in Anchorage, with Anchorage eventually serving as the one-stop fuelling stopover to Asia.
That is still the plan but it seems to be taking a while to get those routes going. The airline only gained FAA operating approval last week.
So while it’s not quite the mainland USA to Asia routes, the airline is using the Ontario – Las Vegas and similar routes to streamline operations ahead of the Asian flights.
Boeing 757 will fly the routes between USA and Asia
The first flight was with one of the airline’s 757-200s, registration N628NP, with the odd flight number 7H777.
N628NP is 28 years old and has been given a full internal refit for the airline’s requirements.
Northern Pacific has four 757s with 181 seats and can fly up to 6.5 hours non-stop.
Cabin Layout
Northern Pacific’s 757s have 181 seats in a 3 class layout:
- 16 First Class, with 39 inch seat pitch
- 36 Economy Select, with 35 inch seat pitch
- 129 Economy, with 31-32 inch seat pitch
Good luck to the new airline
It’s always a joy to see a new airline, especially one with such an interesting idea.
We wish Northern Pacific great success.
