Alaska Airlines debuts Boeing 737 Max on first passenger flight

• Alaska Airlines launched passenger flights on Monday with the Boeing 737 Max.
• The first day of flights was two returns, the first from Seattle to San Diego, California.
• United Airlines has just placed an order for another 25 Boeing 737 Max aircraft.
• Visit the Insider Business Department for more stories.

Boeing’s most notorious aircraft kicks off well in March with two milestones to tackle the month.

Alaska Airlines began a passenger service with the Boeing 737 Max on Monday after a long delay. Flight AS482 departs in the early morning hours from the airline’s center to San Diego and arrives without any problems before departing for Seattle.

The first flight was the culmination of more than 19,000 miles and 50 hours of test flights performed in the weeks since the delivery of the aircraft to Alaska. The only Boeing 737 Max 9 from the airline was flown as far from Seattle as Charleston, South Carolina; Kailua-Kona, Hawaii; and Juneau, Alaska during February, show data from FlightAware.

Alaska is the fourth U.S. airline to fly the Max and initially planned to start operating during the summer of 2019 until the plane took off in March 2019. The first Max delivery to Alaska only took place in January, just two months after the Federal Aviation Administration’s order was quickly counted by numerous regulators around the world.

Drivers were confident in the aircraft and the cost-saving capabilities even before the first model arrived at the Alaska Center at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Boeing’s loyal customer ended 2020 with fixed orders for 68 aircraft, compared to an initial order of 32 aircraft, and options for 52 more before the first proof flight was flown.

More airlines have also relaunched the Max service after the underground, as countries and regions such as Canada, the EU and Brazil approved the plane to return to the air. Boeing said at the end of January that more than 2,700 flights had been available since the launch.

Alaska has only four daily departures planned by plane, until March 18, when it enters its second Max passenger service. According to Cirium’s data, Los Angeles and San Diego are currently the only cities Max visits on flights from Seattle, and eventually also from Portland, Oregon.

The aircraft will remain primarily on the West Coast until more aircraft are added, but the evidence flights show that the airline is likely to have plans for East and Hawaii Max flights. Alaska will be able to take the Max south of the border to Mexico, the airline’s largest international destination region, and Costa Rica, as both countries have given the plane the green light to fly in their airspace.

United places more Max orders

United Airlines is also pushing ahead with the Max on the heels of a successful relocation. Airline chief executive Andrew Nocella said in a memorandum to staff that 25 new Boeing 737 Max aircraft had just been ordered and that deliveries of 45 previously ordered aircraft had been postponed.

“These new aircraft are the best the industry can offer in terms of customer convenience, experience and convenience,” Nocella said in the memo, which United shared with Insider. “In fact, flights on our MAX aircraft in 2018 and 2019 had the highest average customer satisfaction score of any large narrow aircraft.”

The relocation of United’s Max plane kicked off on February 11 with the first flight traveling unintentionally from Denver to Houston, Texas, with Insider on board. United have gradually increased the number of Max flights and are on track to go from 24 daily departures on February 11 to 96 by the end of March, according to Cirium.

Jonathan Roitman, chief operating officer of United, told Insider after the first flight that the Max name did not drive too many passengers off the plane. Many on the first flight did not even know they were flying with a Max, despite United’s warnings when they booked a flight on the Max and the name of the plane on airport directions and on board safety cards.

Both United and Alaska are the only two U.S. airlines flying the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft, the largest variant in commercial service.

Southwest Airlines is the only US airline to fly Max that has not yet been launched again, with its Max relaunch expected in March.