Alaska Airlines launches official Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge plane

To celebrate Star Wars day this ‘May the 4th,’ not only will Alaska Airlines customers clad in Star Wars apparel be able to enjoy early boarding, they might just find themselves flying the airline’s brand-new Millennium Falcon aircraft. This morning, Alaska Airlines revealed an exclusive collaboration with Disneyland Resort and Lucasfilm—a Star Wars-themed Boeing 737-890.

Painted space black and emblazoned with the Millennium Falcon and four TIE fighters, the design features cute little porgs on the winglets and boarding door, as well as the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Disneyland Resort logos in the center body of the fuselage. This is the seventh Alaska Airlines plane themed in collaboration with Disneyland Resort.

“One of the things we knew we wanted to do was really think about the core fans of Star Wars and get them excited and engaged,” Natalie Bowman, managing director of marketing and advertising for Alaska Airlines, told Fast Company. “We thought: Wouldn’t it be amazing to put the Millennium Falcon in the air? So a big part of the design is the Millennium Falcon in the night sky, in space.”

To realize this vision, the Alaska Airlines team spent 540 hours painting the airplane over the course of 27 days—using 23 base colors, including custom colors created on-site to capture the details and airbrushing as precisely and as true-to-form as possible.

“As a west coast airline, we’re typically known for being a caring airline and bright and happy and all those things,” Bowman says. “This is a black livery—a very dark livery with the Millennium Falcon. It’s very Star Wars and very unexpected for Alaska Airlines.”

The official “Star Wars transport to the Disneyland Resort”—tail number N538AS—is scheduled to fly in the Alaska fleet for at least eight years, and has the capability to fly throughout the network, including to Hawaii, with scheduled routes shared on the airline’s website one week in advance.

“Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is one of the most popular destinations at Disneyland Resort,” Lynn Clark, vice president of sales and services at Disneyland Resort, said in a statement. “Now, thanks to our great friends at Alaska Airlines, our guests can begin their Star Wars experience even before they arrive at Disneyland Park.”