Alaska Air Group is mulling the future of Hawaiian’s fleet of 19 Boeing 717 aircraft, which exclusively operate inter-island flights in Hawaii. Hawaiian has flown the type for over two decades, with the fleet’s average age nearing 24 years old.
Hawaiian – and now Alaska, following last year’s acquisition – maintain the second-largest 717 fleet in the world, just behind Delta, according to fleet data from Cirium.
At the time of writing, 95 of the aircraft remain in service worldwide.
During a Goldman Sachs investors conference last week, Alaska Air Group’s financial chief Shane Tackett said the aging aircraft “need to be replaced,” but noted that no decision has been made yet.
“And so there’s no decisions made, but it’s not — like I’m not going to fool you guys, but like the 717s need to be replaced,” he shared.
Tackett added that the aircraft will “likely” be replaced with 737s “of some sort.”
“And so we have an amazing partnership with Boeing, obviously, and we have a very, very good order book for MAX aircraft that takes us years into the future,” he said.
Different Aircraft
But Tackett also hinted at a different aircraft type to backfill the 717s, which he called “purpose-built.”
“… Although we will look at, is there a different sort of purpose-built short-stage length, high-cycle aircraft that could live in Hawaii better than the 737,” he continued. Hawaiian also flies the Airbus A321neo on some inter-island flights.
