I know nothing whatsoever about Alaska's financial decision-making style, but cannot imagine that they would really unload the HA fleet as quickly as people seem to think. It does not make financial sense in the current environment. Especially the 717. The planes are owned outright by HA currently, and are not in much worse shape than they were 10 or 15 years ago. The thing is built like a tank and is uniquely suited to the "tactical operations" that Interisland flying really turns out to be. Keeping that fleet alive will remain profitable until Delta stops flying them and parts become hard to come by. For now that is not really a thing....yet. More importantly anything that messes with interisland will essentially hand that market share back to SWA, which seems like something Alaska would be even less likely to do than Hawaiian.

For the 330, threre is no "back-out clause" for Alaska to drop the Amazon flying that I know of (I could be wrong). So at least until the first 8 year deal ends, the infrastructure to support the 330 will still be around. They don't have a choice! Seeing how difficult procuring new aircraft is currently, if Alaska wants to use widebodies for anything beyond HA's current routes, it will have to be with existing planes for a little while. It would not make a lot of sense to unload them until the additional 787s are actually on property in numbers that support ALL of the flying that is eventually planned, whatever in the heck that turns out to be. How long is it going to take to get 20+ 787s on property, really?

And the 321 is a better product for transpac than the MAX (which isn't really saying much, I know). I ride both, frequently. The mid-cabin lav and Starlink are hard to beat, and the fuel burn is exactly the same as the 717 to the pound. Think about it. More importantly, unlike MAXes that will be built at some questionable point in the future, the planes are sitting on the ramp, and half of them are owned outright. If it makes money, it will stay, at least until MAX-10's are real things you get see on the ramp.

Once everyone gets together and sings kumbaya over all the various proprietary data that is currently not being shared, whatever is actually making money will probably stick around for a little while at least. The logic that finance people use is not the same logic that pilots use, so we are probably all wrong. Follow the money!