Can the Russian airspace closure benefit this upcoming airline?

The soon to be launched Northern Pacific Airways (NPA) aims to become the Icelandair of the Pacific.

A little about Icelandair:

Icelandair is the king of the Atlantic crossing. Check out their route map

What advantages does Icelandair have in this region?

1. Location. Location
   Icelandair is able to operate a hub and spoke model for the Atlantic crossing thanks to the incredible location of Reykjavik. It funnels all passengers from one side into Reykjavik and send them off to their relevant destination on the other side.
2. Icelandair operates all these routes on Boeing 757 aircrafts which is extremely economical for the following reasons:
   1. Higher occupancy – The 757 seats ~180 passengers as opposed to larger wide body aircrafts such as Boeing 787, 777 or Airbus 330, 380 which are used for the longer non-stop Pacific routes. These wide body aircrafts seat upwards of 400 passengers and are often forced to fly with many empty seats.
   2. Operating a homogenous aircraft fleet leads to costs savings as both crew training and aircraft maintenance are more streamlined. All training/ parts/ procedures/ capabilities need to be maintained for only a few aircraft types. Icelandair operates primarily Boeing 737s and 757s which are both narrow body aircrafts from the same manufacturer. Most airlines operating on the Atlantic crossing have a variety of aircrafts – wide body and narrow body (often from more than one manufacturer)

Some interesting facts:

• In 2019, Icelandair ferried 4,408,000 international passengers which is 12x the entire population of Iceland
• Their international passenger traffic has grown at a CAGR of 12% from 2012 to 2019.

Northern Pacific Airways

North Pacific Airlines is kickstarting a pacific crossing hub at Anchorage, Alaska.  They will connect destinations between Asia and The USA through Anchorage which has been a hub for freight carriers like Fedex and UPS for many years.

How can Northern Pacific potentially benefit from the Russian airspace closure?

With the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has shut its airspace to all European and North American carriers which has significantly increased flying time and cost for many Europe-Asia routes

Why have costs ballooned?

1. The longer flying routes requires more fuel
2. The longer flying hours requires carrying more fuel which increases the weight of the aircraft thereby reducing its fuel economy.

NPA might secretly be hoping for a long airspace closure (like during the cold war) as it can many Asia-Europe routes viable through their Anchorage hub. NPA can connect multiple destinations between Europe and Asia at a lower cost as well as provide a break in the journey of routes which are now taking even longer than 14 hours. This however would likely require the addition of wide body aircrafts which would be a departure from NPA’s current strategy.