Alaska Airlines (AS, Seattle Tacoma International) no longer expects to add 23 new B737 MAX this year, Ben Minicucci, Alaska Air Group’s President and Chief Executive Officer, said during a first quarter investors call. Instead, the carrier expects to get somewhere between ten and 20 aircraft from Boeing (BOE, Washington National) in 2024.
“We are in discussions with Boeing, and as we gain more clarity on those deliveries, we will update our expectations, but we expect full year capacity growth at this point to be below 3%,” CFO Shane Tackett said adding that talks about compensation are underway.
As of December 31, 2023, Alaska Air Group expected to add a total of 27 aircraft in 2024 to its fleet, including one B737-800(BCF) for its cargo division, seven B737-8s, sixteen B737-9s, and three E175s to be operated by subsidiary Horizon Air (QX, Seattle Tacoma International). In 2024’s first quarter, the group only added two E175s.
The new deliveries are set to replace older B737-900s of which the airline operates 12 (with an average age of 22.1 years) and seventy-nine B737-900ERs (8.2 years).
Other US carriers have also confirmed curtailed deliveries from Boeing in 2024 as it copes with quality concerns and increased regulatory oversight as a result. United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) said it anticipates getting 61 narrowbody and five widebody aircraft in 2024, down from the original 191 contracted deliveries; while Southwest Airlines (WN, Dallas Love Field) expects about twenty MAX 8s down from the original 79 MAX.
Due to the grounding of the B737-9 earlier this year, Alaska Airlines received USD162 million in compensation from Boeing during the first quarter.
The ch-aviation fleets module shows Alaska Airlines has 80 aircraft on order, including forty-five B737-10s, nineteen B737-8s, and sixteen B737-9s. Horizon Air has commitments to purchase seven additional E175s, with deliveries between 2024 and 2026 and options to acquire ten additional airframes between 2025 and 2026.
