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Alaska Airlines is "anxious" to begin taking deliveries of the larger Boeing 737 MAX 10 to help it carry more passengers once the plane is certified, the carrier's CEO Ben Minicucci said on Wednesday. Boeing must first win approval from the FAA for its smaller MAX 7 before it can get approval for the MAX 10. Both variants have faced major delays amid more intense regulatory scrutiny after criticism of the earlier certification process for the MAX 8, which suffered fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. "Basically we like bigger airplanes," Minicucci said in an interview of the preference for the MAX 10, which can carry 189 passengers, up from 178 on the MAX 9. "For essentially the same trip costs I put 11 more passengers on." In October, Alaska Airlines said it was exercising options to purchase 52 MAX aircraft for delivery between 2024 and 2027 and secured rights for 105 more planes through 2030. The company said on Wednesday it has 48 MAX 10s on order. "We're anxious that it gets approved," Minicucci said. "Of course it has to be safe and certified appropriately but we'll be a big fan of the -10 when it comes out." Boeing said on May 31 certification of the MAX 7 is taking a "considerable amount of time" due to new documentation requirements, but the planemaker still believes it can be approved by the end of the year.<br/>

Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci is confident that the carrier will continue serving all of the small cities in its network for the foreseeable future, despite a worsening shortage of captains at its regional affiliates. “I see the problem getting worse, not better,” Minicucci said referring to the pilot shortage in an interview Wednesday with Airline Weekly in Washington, D.C. Asked whether that meant Alaska could end service to some of the small cities in its network — many where it is the only air connection to the outside world — he said: “Right now, no. Not in the short term.” That’s generally good news for all the small cities Alaska serves. The airline, thanks to its geography, is the sole major carrier in many small Pacific Northwest and state of Alaska markets, including Kotzebue and Wrangell, Alaska, Pullman-Moscow serving northern Idaho and eastern Washington, and Yakima, Wash., to name a few. “What I’m worried about is next year and the year after that,” Minicucci concluded on small city air service, and again pointed to the shortage of captains at regional airlines. Alaska’s wholly-owned regional subsidiary, Horizon Air, faces elevated pilot attrition rates that, while not forcing it to park any aircraft as at some other airlines, does mean it is flying planes at lower utilization levels than before the pandemic. Alaska also contracts SkyWest Airlines for some of its regional flying. Minicucci did not comment of the Utah-based carrier’s plan to launch a schedule charter operator, SkyWest Charter, to continue serving federally subsidized communities.<br/>