Alaska Airlines operated its last revenue-generating A320 services
on January 9th. It then had its final flight on the 10th, operating empty to Victorville.
The A320 joined Alaska's fleet in 2018 following the tie-up with Virgin America,
with data showing that Alaska operated 53 of them.
In today’s video, let’s look at the closing of this chapter for Alaska Airlines.
A total of nine aircraft were withdrawn on January 8th, with another two the following day.
Operated by 11-year-old N849VA, the last of Alaska's A320 flights took place on January 9th.
With the apt name of "fly bye baby," the jet started the day at Los Angeles,
where it had remained overnight, having arrived from Mazatlan on the 8th.
According to Flightradar24, the final services on the 9th were
a series of flights between Los Angeles and Seattle. In total,
the aircraft operated two return trips, four flights, from LAX to Seattle Tacoma airport.
N849VA departed LAX at 14:06 on January 10th for the 74-mile (119km) final flight to Victorville.
Flightradar24 indiated that it had the call sign
'Alaska Nine Eight Zero Zero', with an arrival time of 14:27. With the end of
this flight, Alaska's history with the A320ceo also comes to an end.
According to Cirium data, Alaska had a total of 404,000 flights in 2022. Of these, the last of its
A320s had approximately 28,000, or some 7%. The type was Alaska's fifth most-used aircraft, behind
the Embraer 175 (as Alaska Horizon), 737-900, 737-800, and Q400 ( also operating as Alaska
Horizon). The A320 operated more Alaska Airlines flights than the 737 MAX 9, 737-700, and A321neo.
Alaska's A320s had between 29 and 114 flights per day last year. Some 30 airports saw the
Airbus narrowbody. Obviously, Seattle was first, but this is followed by San Francisco,
Los Angeles, Portland, Orange County, Las Vegas, Austin, Burbank, Los Cabos, and Chicago O'Hare.
The type was deployed on some 66 routes, including a handful of very time-limited services. The most
popular route was the 978-mile (1,574km) link from Seattle to heavily slot-constrained Orange County.
The top ten, shown here, were responsible for 57% of Alaska's entire A320 flights in 2022:
Next to be withdrawn will be Alaska Horizon's remaining Dash-8-Q400s,
followed by ex-Virgin America A321neos by the end of the year.
All of this will continue the airline’s pursuit of a fully Boeing 737 mainline fleet.
With Alaska having a fairly close relationship with Boeing, it announced last October that it
would be exercising options to purchase 52 Boeing 737 MAX jets - constituting the airline's biggest
aircraft order in its 90 years of operations. Deliveries of these aircraft are to take place
between 2024 and 2027 and will take the MAX fleet from a planned 94 to 146 aircraft.
Did you ever fly on any of Alaska's A320s? If so,
where did you go? Share your experiences by leaving a comment!