Gallery: Inside Northern Pacific Airways’ New Fleet Retrofit Project

Startup carrier Northern Pacific Airways is planning to begin service in early 2023 from the U.S. to Mexico, followed by flights from the U.S. to Asia that will connect through Anchorage, Alaska. As it prepares for launch, it is busy completing maintenance and retrofits for its fleet of Boeing 757-200 aircraft.

All four of Northern Pacific Airways’ 757s are ex-American Airlines aircraft that were retired at the end of the pandemic. Northern Pacific pulled the aircraft out of storage and it has been busy conducting extensive C checks with several MRO partners.

Once maintenance work is completed, the airline and its MRO partners are stripping the aircraft down to the frames and starting from scratch with entirely new interiors that include new leather seats designed by ACLA and manufactured by Regent Aerospace Corp.

According to Northern Pacific Airways CEO Rob McKinney, the first aircraft took approximately eight months to complete due to supply chain issues. The second was completed in about 3.5 months and he expects the remaining two aircraft to be completed on pace or even quicker moving forward. The third aircraft has completed the maintenance phase and it is now ready for painting and interior work. McKinney says the airline will begin work on the fourth aircraft soon.

Supply chain issues are not the only challenge Northern Pacific has encountered while preparing for launch. McKinney says the airline’s original goal was to acquire a fleet of 12 aircraft, but the Russian war on Ukraine created the need to pivot plans.

“Originally we were not going to need [extended-range twin-engine operations performance standards (ETOPS)] and we were going to be able to fly [the planned Asia routes] ourselves, but now we have to circumnavigate Russian airspace, so ETOPS is required,” he says. “We’re talking with a couple potential partners who will fly the Asia pieces for us, so we’ll be the marketing carrier and they’ll be the operating carrier. Depending on how many airplanes the partner brings to the table, that will determine how many aircraft we’re going to need out of the gate. But ultimately, over the next three to five years, we’re planning on scaling the 757 fleet to around 25 aircraft.”

Despite recent geopolitical and economic tumult, McKinney believes the situation has actually created a unique business opportunity for launching a new airline.

“It’s never the perfect time to do something like this. We really saw an opportunity in this post-COVID world where there had been so much contraction in the industry,” he says. “There have definitely been some geopolitical issues that we had not predicted, but we still think this is the right time. If you scroll back time to 2019, it would’ve been nearly impossible to try to get slots, gates and all the infrastructure needed to do something like this, as everything was saturated and full. As difficult as everything has been, this is still the right time for us.”

Once Northern Pacific Airways launches service, it will rely on partnerships with Boeing and various MRO facilities for heavier checks. However, McKinney says the airline will be able to perform light checks in-house at its main base at Ontario International Airport (ONT). He says the airline is rapidly acquiring tooling and hiring its own maintenance staff, with plans to grow to around 45 maintenance staff at ONT initially. “As we grow fleets and add flights into Asia, we’ll be looking at different MRO partners on the Asia side as well,” he adds.