Alaska’s Hawaiian Merger: What Form 41 Reveals

Alaska Airlines now has all the Hawaiian fleet data being reported under its brand at the DOT. The impact is remarkable. Let's dig into the data to unpack what is happening. The chart below shows the dramatic impact - and it looks like it's going in the wrong direction. Mergers are supposed to bring economies of scale. This does not look like it at all. Form 41 The table below comes from the airline's Form 41 filing. The image is from our Form 41 KPI model. 1Q26 results show a significant increase in costs, which was not expected, or certainly not at these rates. Notice the impact of the merged fleet on operations in the lower right chart. [caption id="attachment_195476" align="aligncenter" width="640"] US DOT; AirInsight[/caption] By Aircraft Type Let's start by drilling down a layer into aircraft type. Alaska has not operated a widebody prior to the fleet merger. [caption id="attachment_195477" align="aligncenter" width="640"] US DOT; AirInsight[/caption] The charts show single-aisle operations are the most financially impactful. The 1Q26 increase is undoubtedly driven by Hawaiian's fleet. By Aircraft Model Now, go down another layer in the model, selecting single-aisle only. This layer begins to uncover something that would be overlooked by anyone not probing the data deeply. Problem #1 - dirty data. This points fingers at the airline for misfiling and at the DOT for poor quality controls. But first, let's focus on the single-aisles. The Hawaiian aircraft fall into two categories: very short-haul (717) and long-haul (A321). [caption id="attachment_195478" align="aligncenter" width="640"] US DOT; AirInsight[/caption] Because the two fleets operate in such different ways, the impact seems driven by Hawaiian's fleet. But look at the bottom-left chart: Alaska's 737NGs are seeing cost spikes. The lower right chart shows this fleet seeing declining utilization. In the lower-right chart, we see that MAX 8 is being worked the hardest. The Hawaii inter-island 717s have the lowest utilization. The 717 is likely to be replaced by Alaska 737-800s because they are available, not because this is the optimal choice. Now to the data quality concerns; the red arrow points to an obvious issue-can you trust this number? It looks implausible. [caption id="attachment_195479" align="aligncenter" width="737"] US DOT; AirInsight[/caption] A second misfiling confirms the pattern. Alaska has plainly filed their 787-9s as 787-10s. They have also filed their A330 freighter data as A330-900s. [caption id="attachment_195480" align="aligncenter" width="640"] US DOT; AirInsight[/caption] The fact they get away with this leaves any analyst with an uneasy feeling about anything the airline files. When we notified the airline, they insisted their filing is accurate. It also means DOT lacks data quality edits. Errors in the Form 41 are legendary. Here we just see more of that. Bottom Line Looking at the data overall, Alaska has a lot of fleet rationalizing to do. The 717 issue is getting attention now. But the A321 is also likely to be scrutinized - Alaska has been here before. The previous A321neo fleet was LEAP-powered and ex-Virgin America. Now there are Hawaiian GTF-powered A321neos. The Virgin aircraft were quickly sold to American. The Hawaiian A321s are valuable, and both United and Delta might be buyers. Working on the fleet rationalization is a key work item. This rationalization might simplify operations, and then we might start to see real economies of scale.

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