New Pacific Airlines shuts down after years of rebrands, regulatory delays, and an unfocused business model.
It is a grim Thanksgiving for the employees of New Pacific Airlines, who learned on Wednesday, 26 November, that the Anchorage-based carrier has ceased operations.
The news arrived in an all-staff email from President and CEO Thomas Hsieh. It was first reported by View From the Wing and read, in part:
“Dear New Pacific Team,
Email to New Pacific employees from CEO Thomas Hsieh
It is with a heavy heart that I’m announcing that we will be ceasing operations today. Unfortunately, we are unable to continue to fund the losses in our business. Although we are ceasing operations immediately, all W-2 employees will be paid through end of day Thursday (November 27th). For those of you on the road, we will work expeditiously to get you home. I’m extremely proud of all of you and everything we have accomplished as New Pacific/Ravn Alaska. Thank you for your hard work, commitment, and being part of the team.”
The closure was sudden, but for many in the industry, not exactly shocking. New Pacific had struggled to find its identity ever since it hit the scene in 2022. What began with lofty ambitions and a distinctly Icelandair-inspired vision slowly eroded under the weight of market shifts, regulatory delays, and financial strain.
A Startup With Big Plans and Bigger Headwinds
New Pacific Airlines began life as Corvus Airlines, later rebranded as Northern Pacific Airways. The pitch was unique: connect North America and Asia through Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) using an Icelandair-style model that encouraged both short connections and multi-day Alaskan stopovers. The fleet chosen for the job consisted of aging Boeing 757-200s that once flew for USAir in the 1990s.
From the start, the airline faced uphill battles.
In October 2022, BNSF filed a trademark infringement lawsuit, arguing that the “Northern Pacific” name was too similar to the historic Northern Pacific Railroad. While the airline attempted to move forward, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction in August 2023, which barred the continued use of the name. Rather than appeal, leadership unveiled a new identity: New Pacific Airlines.
Employees were invited to suggest ideas and, after a round of internal deliberation, New Pacific became the official brand. The change preserved key visual elements, including the stylized “N” that had already been painted on aircraft and printed across marketing materials.
External forces soon squeezed the airline’s plans even further. Once Russian airspace became off-limits and approvals stalled in Korea and Japan, the long-haul model that had defined the startup was no longer viable. By April 2024, the company shut down its last scheduled flights and committed solely to charter service.
Through all of this, New Pacific continued to lean on the legacy of Ravn Alaska, its in-state brand (which itself shut down in August 2025). Ravn Connect was a related but separate subsidiary. The company’s roots traced all the way back to 20 June 1948, when it started life as Economy Helicopters. It began with a single Bell helicopter mapping the wilds of Alaska. Now, more than seventy years later, the entity that once represented Alaska’s bush flying spirit has ended its scheduled passenger operations and survived only through its charter business until the events of this week.
A Final Attempt at Reinvention
As recently as early November 2025, New Pacific appeared to be forging ahead with new plans. The carrier announced a partnership with beOnd, the Maldives-based luxury operator known for its all-premium cabins. Together, the airlines intended to launch a new operation called BeOnd America, with New Pacific providing the US operating certificate and its 757 fleet to bring beOnd’s upscale model to American shores.
BeOnd currently connects the Maldives with destinations across Europe and the Middle East. Its US expansion was set to be its most ambitious move yet. That plan now appears to be on indefinite hold. It remains unclear what beOnd will do next, especially after investing months into a launch that depended entirely on New Pacific’s certificate and operational footprint.
It raises an uncomfortable question. Why would New Pacific leadership go through the trouble of laying the groundwork for a high-profile premium partnership while its own finances were unraveling behind the scenes. One must assume that Thomas Hsieh understood how deeply the carrier was struggling. Yet the company pressed forward, perhaps hoping that the beOnd deal would become the lifeline it needed.
A Carrier That Never Found the Runway It Wanted
New Pacific received its full FAA authorization on 9 July 2023 and launched its first commercial flight, from Ontario International Airport (ONT) to Las Vegas Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), five days later. Its underwhelming scheduled route map was…interesting, to say the least…with ONT, LAS, Reno (RNO, and Nashville (BNA) as its first four destinations. But after months of slow bookings and operational challenges, the airline abruptly put the kibosh on scheduled service in April 2024.
At the time of closure, New Pacific operated three Boeing 757-200s, each outfitted with 78 oversized seats, including 48 sleeper seats arranged for an all-business-class configuration. The airline boasted that any of the aircraft could be swapped for a high-density layout of 181 seats if needed. These airframes were approaching thirty years old, and all three had long histories within the USAir/US Airways/American Airlines fleet.
- N627NP, delivered in March 1995
- N628NP, delivered in May 1995
- N629NP, delivered in June 1995
By 26 November 2025, N627NP and N628NP had already been ferried to the desert for storage. N629NP sat parked at Long Island’s Republic Airport (FRG). AvGeeks may recall that N629NP made headlines in 2024 as the campaign plane for Kamala Harris.
It’s always a sad moment when an airline goes under. As I took a look at New Pacific’s still-active website less than 24 hours after it ceased operations, a banner on the homepage summed up dreams that have now faded:
“While our ambitions to connect Asia and North America remains our end goal, we seek to expand throughout the US and North America in the meantime.”
The End of a Complicated Journey
Those ambitions marked the conclusion of a complicated journey.
In the end, the company that once set out to be the next Icelandair never got to fly a single transpacific passenger. It tried to build a global link through Anchorage, but geopolitics, branding battles, and financial gravity kept dragging it back to earth.
The shutdown of Ravn Alaska in August 2025, followed by this week’s announcement, closes the book on a long, winding aviation lineage that stretched from a lone Bell helicopter in 1948 to a trio of ex-USAir 757s in 2025.
For the dedicated employees who held on through the rebrands, the setbacks, and the countless reinvention attempts, this Thanksgiving brings little reason to celebrate. Their inboxes delivered a painful but predictable truth. New Pacific Airlines, in all its forms, simply ran out of runway.
We wish all the folks at New Pacific the best of luck as they figure out what’s next.
