Northern Pacific Airways, America’s new airline, finally operated its inaugural flight between Ontario International Airport (ONT), which is one of the airports serving the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area and Harry Reid International Airport, Las Vegas (LAS).
Flight 7H777 took off from Ontario at 3pm local time on July 14, 2023, in what was the first commercial flight of the American startup airline.
The Northern Pacific Airways projected had been suffering several delays and it is current operational form it is, actually, quite different from the one the carrier was conceived for.
Although the original idea was for Northern Pacific to operate between the Continental United States and destinations in Japan and South Korea via Alaska, the project has had to be adapted while it awaits regulatory approval for its planned Trans-Pacific flights.
In the meantime, Northern Pacific Airways has looked for other missions for its fleet of four Boeing 757-200s. For example, in the Autumn of 2022, the airline’s CEO, Rob McKinney, took one of the aircraft on a tour of several Pacific territories, pitching the airline to the government of the Northern Marianas for regional services across the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean.
The launch of scheduled flights between California and destinations in Mexico was also considered at some point, but never materialized.
Northern Pacific Airways is part of a group of airlines that includes FLOAT Shuttle (acronym for Fly Over All Traffic), a commuter airline the links several airports in the Los Angeles area, as well as Ravn, Alaska’s largest regional airline.
Northern Pacific Airways product proposition for its Trans-Pacific service is to offer a two-class service somehow cheaper than that offered by its nonstop competitors, yet the airline plans to use its links to the Alaskan tourism industry and the Anchorage (ANC) stopover as an addiitonal point of differentiation, offering tourism experiences in America’s northernmost state.