Wall Street often focuses on America’s “Big Four” airlines — mainly its biggest two — but Alaska Air GroupALK

is positioning itself to become a strong contender for a fifth spot among the industry’s giants.

Eyeing global growth: Boasting one of the youngest fleets in the world, Alaska Airlines has already cemented itself as a premium regional carrier, catering largely to customers on the Pacific coast. Now, following its $1.9B acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines, it has its eyes set on a bigger prize — going global. On Tuesday, the company revealed plans for Hawaiian to launch nonstop services between its Seattle hub and overseas destinations in Tokyo, Japan, and Seoul, South Korea. They’ll be the first of many.

• The two routes represent the airline’s first concerted foray into international travel, targeting Seattle’s affluent and internationally connected population.
• By 2030, the aviation powerhouse hopes to serve “at least a dozen international destinations from Seattle,” utilizing Hawaiian’s widebody jets, including the Airbus A330 and Boeing 787.

Cruising to Growth

After the collapse of JetBlue’s planned acquisition of Spirit Airlines, the combined Alaska-Hawaiian air transport provider has leap-frogged to become America’s fifth-largest airline, but catching up with the big dogs will still be difficult. To eat up more of the market, Alaska intends to follow its competitors’ flight plans to a T.

• At its investor day, Alaska offered investors a clear vision for how it’ll grow — including the addition of more premium seating and a co-branded travel card for affluent travelers.
• In addition to some $500M in cost savings created from its tie-up with Hawaiian, the enterprise expects these initiatives to generate $1B in new profits and 11-13% pretax profit margins by 2027.

Unexpected rough air? These projections reassured investors, who were left with a $1B buyback to sweeten the carrier’s promises. Still, it’ll have one major bottleneck to address before it can pose a real threat to the top four: its fleet. Together, Alaska and Hawaiian operate just under 500 jets, with more than 110 more on order — mostly Boeing’s still-uncleared 737 MAX 10 variant. But after a year of 737 MAX issues, the only thing standing between the airline and a comfy ride to 40K feet could be BoeingBA

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