Alaska Airlines is ready for a true premium play. The carrier will introduce a MAX 10 sub-fleet with lie-flat beds and premium economy, add premium economy to its widebody fleet, and make other adjustments in an effort to capture the growing premium demand on both domestic and long-haul itineraries.
The new mini-suites carry the Aurora* brand name on the Boeing fleet, while premium economy will be branded Premium Reserve across both Boeing and Airbus types.
Alaska Airlines provided airfare and hotel accommodations for PaxEx.Aero to attend the company’s Media/Investor Day event where the new products were unveiled. As always, all opinions remain our own.
n.b. – This story has been updated several times with additional product details from the unveiling at the carrier’s Media Day event.
A Premium Transcon MAX 10 Fleet
Alaska Airlines will operate a dedicated sub-fleet of 737 MAX 10 aircraft in the Aurora configuration – including a livery to match the 787s – featuring a truly premium on-board layout. “At least” 25 of these aircraft are expected, with the first joining the operations in 2028.
The Aurora configuration will include six rows of lie-flat “Aurora1” seats in a 1-1 layout, plus three rows of premium economy in a 2-2 arrangement. Economy class will continue to fly with a 3-3 setup. The planes will carry a total of 159 passengers on board, comparable to the MAX 9’s 162, but with a much more premium configuration.
Elevate Aircraft Seating will provide the forward cabin seats with its Ascent narrow-body product. The seats are angled away from the center aisle and offer all the expected amenities, including a 19-inch 4K entertainment screen, Bluetooth connectivity, wireless and USB-C charging and AC power. Notably, the Aurora seats on the MAX 10 fleet will not include a privacy door, similar to Air Canada’s recent configuration choice on its A321XLR fleet, albeit with a different seating vendor.
Premium Reserve on the MAX 10s appears nearly identical to the current 737 first class seat, with the addition of a headrest privacy wing. The 2-2 layout offers increased recline and additional space for passengers (38″ pitch), while stopping short of the full flat-bed experience.
The seats are manufactured by Recaro.
It includes a 16″ IFE screen, plus USB-C and AC power.
These will also be the first Alaska Airlines 737s to carry in-seat entertainment systems, another premium shift for the carrier.
But, unfortunately, that premium shift will only apply for those in the premium cabins. Alaska Airlines executives confirm that they will not include IFE screens in the economy class cabins. Part of that is based on concerns about seat certification timelines, very much a problem for the industry writ large. Indeed, multiple executives shared the view that the decision “could have been different if timelines were different and Starlink wasn’t so good.”
The decision is also very much an economic one, with the carrier actively looking at “what could be the business model around the seatback screen, curated content, marketing, advertising, monetizing,” to justify expanding the platform to the back half of the plane.
Panasonic Avionics is the IFE supplier for these aircraft, with its Astrova platform.
Aurora Upgrades on the Alaska Airlines 787s
The updated Aurora cabin on the 787s is also the Elevate Ascent product, though this time the widebody version. It offers a 1-2-1 layout with the outboard seats facing the windows and the center pair angled towards each other.
These seats will include privacy doors, in addition to the other premium bits offered on the MAX 10 fleet. The 787-9 fleet will carry 34 mini-suites while the –10 fleet will fly with 40.
Premium Reserve will fly in a 2-3-2 layout on the 787s, with five rows of the premium seats for both Dreamliner variants. The seats do not show the same cupholders for the 787s as the MAX 10 does, but both will have the headrest privacy wings, plus calf/foot supports.
The 787-9 will fly with 279 total seats following the reconfigurations, down from 300 today. That’s a sizable drop in total capacity, effectively trading 56 economy class seats for 35 in the Premium Reserve cabin (34/266 to 34/35/210). The 787-10s will be configured at 40/35/245 for 314 total seats.
The 787-9s fly today with the Ascent seat. They will be refreshed with updated cushions and covers to refresh the finish and shift to the Alaska branding, while keeping the underlying structures to reduce refresh costs.
A Leihōkū Upgrade on the A330s
The carrier’s A330s will also receive a refresh from nose-to-tail, including a reimagining of the Leihōkū Suites concept.
The updated suites will feature 22 lie-flat beds in a 1-2-1 layout. It is appears to be the Collins Aerospace Elevation platform.
Premium Reserve will fly with four rows on the A330s, though without the privacy wings, using the Collins MiQ seat. The carrier notes the slightly lower privacy positioning is tied to families traveling together to the islands, though that theory didn’t entirely work with the lie-flats on the fleet a decade ago.
The products all fit well within the current market trend of pushing the premium experience. But that is a segment the Seattle market has struggled to support in the past, at least for domestic operations. Both Delta Air Lines and JetBlue have flown their premium lie-flat seats on their Seattle transcons in the past but failed to make the economics work. The market is somewhat different today, and Alaska Airlines arguably holds a more commanding position from which to make it work.
But the carrier also quickly spiked the premium Virgin America experience post-merger. Bringing back that swagger, and making it work financially, will be an interesting experiment.
Hopefully the company will be willing and able to answer some of these questions during the events in Seattle.
- I find this very amusing, as Collins Aerospace has a premium cabin product called Aurora. But Collins is not the vendor of choice for the Aurora cabin any of the Alaska Airlines planes. ↩︎
A favor to ask while you're here...
Did you enjoy the content? Or learn something useful? Or generally just think this is the type of story you'd like to see more of? Consider supporting the site through a donation (any amount helps). It helps keep me independent and avoiding the credit card schlock.
Leave a Reply