Alaska Airlines Breaks Ground on $150 Million PDX Maintenance Hangar
Alaska Airlines broke ground on a new $150 million maintenance hangar Tuesday, months after Portland approved tax breaks for the project and a few weeks after the airline unveiled its luxurious new lounge at the Portland International Airport.
Following final permitting approvals, the airline will construct the hangar adjacent to the existing Horizon Air Ops Center & Maintenance Hangar at the airport. Alaska said the hangar, set to be completed in the second quarter of 2028, will add 125,000 square feet of space for indoor aircraft maintenance and 60,000 square feet for offices and support areas.
“Portland is now developing as a true hub, with a lot more connecting passengers,” said Benjamin Brookman, Alaska’s vice president of real estate and airport affairs. “All of that really means that investment in our core operation is needed, not just for now, but for the future as we think about growth.”
The new facility will create more than 100 permanent jobs, including as many as 60 for maintenance workers who would earn average salaries of $120,000, according to details of the project posted on the city’s website. Another 45 jobs would be created for shipping and receiving workers earning up to $50,000. The facility would employ as many as eight engineers making $160,000.
The hangar, the size of nearly three football fields, will allow maintenance technicians to work on up to three narrowbody aircraft or two widebody aircraft at a time, which will speed up recovery of out-of-service aircraft. Brookman told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the project will employ mostly unionized construction workers.
On Tuesday, leadership from Alaska and the Port of Portland, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, Portland Metro Chamber CEO Andrew Hoan and others gathered to officially break ground on the hangar site at 7646 NE Airtrans Way.
Alaska is Portland’s largest carrier with more than 130 daily departures this summer. By the fall, it will offer 50% more seats in Portland than it did two years ago, airline leadership said. Alaska, Hawaiian Airlines, which it bought in 2023, and Horizon Air, a regional airline it owns, have over 3,000 employees in the Portland area.
“(The hangar) will help drive growth at the airport, and it will help add new routes to connect Oregonians to the places they want to go,” said Port of Portland Chief Aviation Officer Dan Pippenger. He said the airport will see just under 20 million passengers this year, and Alaska carries half of those flyers.
Wilson celebrated the groundbreaking as another sign of a “renaissance” for the city. He suggested that Portland was Alaska’s “second headquarters” and said he’d worked with city councilors early in his term to extend an existing enterprise zone to include the project site. That move will save Alaska roughly $1.8 million annually in property taxes for five years.
Alaska’s Boeing 737 operation works out of hangars in Anchorage and Seattle. The hangar is the airline’s latest PDX expansion.
Alaska grew its lobby presence in 2024 and opened a 14,000-square-foot lounge in early June. It is also launching new flight options in Portland this summer, including year-round service to Paine Field and seasonal service to Baltimore and Philadelphia.
“We are doubling down on the city of Portland. It’s a key hub for us, and it’s a place many of us call home,” said Jason Berry, Alaska’s chief operating officer. “You’ve seen this in the investments that we’ve made.”
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