Alaska Airlines operated its last revenue-generating A320 services on January 9th, with the final flight – operating empty to Victorville – taking place on the 10th. The A320 joined Alaska's fleet in 2018 following the tie-up with Virgin America, with ch-aviation showing that Alaska operated 53 of them. Nine aircraft were withdrawn on January 8th, together with two on the 9th. Next to be withdrawn will be Alaska Horizon's remaining Dash-8-Q400s, followed by ex-Virgin America A321neos by the end of the year.

The final day: January 9th

Operated by 11-year-old N849VA, the last of Alaska's A320 flights took place on January 9th. With the apt name of "fly bye baby," N849VA started the day at Los Angeles, where it had remained overnight, having arrived from Mazatlan on the 8th.

According to Flightradar24, the first of four sectors on the 9th was AS1075, which left Los Angeles at 07:11 bound for Seattle, arriving at 09:38. AS1144 departed Seattle at 11:47, returning to LAX at 14:11. At 15:39, AS1147 took off back to Washington State, landing at 17:49. The final scheduled flight of N849VA, which was delivered to Virgin America in January 2012, was AS1196, which took off Seattle at 20:37 and arrived in LAX at 22:58.

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N849VA is expected to leave LAX at 13:00 on January 10th for the 74-mile (119km) final flight to Victorville. Flightradar24 shows that it'll have the call sign 'Alaska Nine Eight Zero Zero', with a planned arrival time of 13:55. So will end Alaska's history with the A320ceo.

Alaska Airlines' final A320 revenue-generating flight
(N849VA's final revenue-generating flight.)
Image: Flightradar24.com.

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Alaska's A320s: 2022

According to Cirium data, Alaska had a total of 404,000 flights in 2022. Of these, the last of its A320s had approximately 28,000, or some 7%. The type was Alaska's fifth most-used aircraft, behind the Embraer 175 (Alaska Horizon), 737-900, 737-800, and Q400 (Alaska Horizon). Not surprisingly, the A320 operated more Alaska flights than the 737 MAX 9, 737-700, and A321neo.

Alaska's A320s had between 29 and 114 flights a day last year. Some 30 airports saw the Airbus narrowbody. Obviously, Seattle was first, then San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Orange County, Las Vegas, Austin, Burbank, Los Cabos, and Chicago O'Hare.

N849VA_Virgin_America_Airbus_A320-214_(SN4991)__fly_bye_baby
(N849VA seen in 2014 with its original operator.)
Photo: Tomas Del Coro via Wikimedia.

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They were deployed on some 66 routes, including a handful of very time-limited services. The most popular route was the 978-mile (1,574km) link from Seattle to heavily slot-constrained Orange County. The top ten, shown below, were responsible for 57% of Alaska's entire A320 flights in 2022:

  1. Seattle to Orange County
  2. Seattle to San Francisco
  3. Seattle to Los Angeles
  4. San Francisco to Las Vegas
  5. Seattle to Las Vegas
  6. Portland to Los Angeles
  7. Portland to San Francisco
  8. Portland to Orange County
  9. San Francisco to Austin
  10. Seattle to Burbank

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Did you fly Alaska's A320s? If so, where did you go? Share your experiences by commenting.