Northern Pacific Airways has officially commenced flights as of July 14, 2023. Northern Pacific Airways has had some major hurdles to jump through including regulatory delays and issues with FAA proving flights. The route for the inaugural flight is from Ontario International Airport in California (ONT) to Las Vegas (LAS) utilizing the Boeing 757-200. The callsign for the inaugural flight is Ravn Alaska 777 and can be tracked on FlightAware.
A Shift In Strategy
Initially, Northern Pacific Airways was going to replicate Icelandair’s model by offering connections to Asia from North America via Anchorage Alaska. Due to the conflict in Ukraine, Russian airspace is shut down for commercial aviation traffic from the United States. Northern Pacific’s aircraft has not received ETOPS certification which allows for extended flights over water in twin engine jet aircraft. This would avoid Russian airspace. Instead, Northern Pacific will operate weekly flights between Ontario and Las Vegas providing proving flights to meet Department of Defense military charter requirements. This is said to be Northern Pacific’s next move in addition to flights to Mexico. As for now, the Airline has finally commenced their first of many more flights to come.