Proving flights have begun for Northern Pacific Airways, a final hurdle the Alaska-based carrier will need to clear before receiving its operations specifications (OpSpecs). 

The June 21 proving flight on one of the carrier’s four Boeing 757-200s took off from southern California’s Ontario International Airport (ONT) at 3:11 p.m. PDT and landed at Anchorage International at 7:18 p.m. AKDT, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. Described by a company spokesperson as a success, the five hr., seven min. flight is the first of 72 hr. of proving flights the airline is working through.

Founded with a vision to operate transpacific flights to Asia with a stopover in Alaska—emulating Icelandair’s model across the Atlantic–Northern Pacific’s commercial operations are slated to launch in mid-July with OpSpecs in hand, beginning with weekly ONT-Las Vegas service. But the original business plan is still alive and well, its top executive says, noting that the launch of commercial flights will also start the clock for ETOPS certification. 

“2024 is the year that we get to Asia, and we get the whole model up and running as designed,” CEO Rob McKinney tells Aviation Daily. “I don’t know exactly what scale, whether that looks like 10 airplanes or 12 airplanes or 15 airplanes, but 2024 definitely is where we get across the finish line and we’re doing the whole connector process and everything is up and running, as originally described.”

The carrier has already received approval from the U.S. Transportation Department (DOT) to serve countries covered by existing U.S. Open Skies and has completed a number of other necessary steps including safety-focused tabletop exercises and an evacuation drill with the FAA. 

“We also, just like Icelandair, have the stopover opportunity. But except for a tiny little speck of land in the middle of the North Atlantic, we have twice the size of Texas, and you have every outdoor activity imaginable for people to do,” McKinney says. “Everyone you talk to has Alaska on their bucket list, but they can’t get their head around, ‘I can’t give up a whole week of vacation just to go to Alaska.’ Well, now you don’t have to.”

In the meantime, the airline has also begun to market charter flights, while also planning to file paperwork “in earnest” for service to Mexico.

“I joke, sometimes people come to me with some problem that’s down the future, and I say that’s step 84,612,” McKinney says. “But we really are on step 84,611.”