Too Good to Pass Up – Alaska Airlines Buys Boeing Facility

Alaska Airlines has purchased a new facility in Renton, Washington, from Unico Properties, which will become home to the airline’s training programs. The Longacres training hub will enhance the training experience for flight attendants, pilots, customer service agents and more, as well as centralize operations into one facility, for the first time in its history. Alaska plans to open the facility in 2025.

Alaska already houses nine full-motion flight simulators in the facility and has plans to add a tenth in the next few years. In addition to simulators, the new space will include a mock aircraft for inflight simulations, classrooms, an auditorium, a production studio and significant office space.

The property is part of Longacres, a 173-acre campus which Unico Properties purchased from Boeing in December 2021 and which housed Boeing Commercial Airplane HQ in prior years. Alaska Airlines has purchased the 19-acre property from Unico Properties for $85.75 million, which includes the 600,000-square-foot facility that Boeing purposefully built to house an aviation training facility. Alaska plans to invest an additional $100 million to renovate the space.

“The growth opportunity this purchase provides us cannot be overstated, and it really feels like a perfect match,” said Shane Jones, senior vice president of fleet, revenue products and real estate at Alaska Airlines. “Having access to a facility that was purpose built for aviation training that we then get to customize was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. As Longacres continues to be built out, our employees will have access to amenities that will truly make this a world class training experience.”

While pilots already train on the campus using the existing simulators, other employee groups will begin moving into the facility following renovations towards the end of 2025.