Alaska Airlines will launch service from Seattle to Rome in 2026, marking its first destination in Europe. Let’s unpack the strategy behind this new route.
Alaska Airlines Picks Rome As First European Destination Using 787-9 Dreamliner
One of the most popular non-clickbait articles I’ve ever published on Live And Let’s Fly was a piece I wrote a day after the Hawaiian-Alaska merger was announced, titled, The Widebody Implications For Alaska Airlines Of Hawaiian Airlines Merger. In that story, I speculated about how Alaska might use Hawaiian 787 aircraft:
At this point, I’m not predicting we will start seeing 787-9 Dreamliner service between Alaska and London or Paris, but I do wonder if we might finally see Alaska meaningfully compete with its peers on transcontinental flights.
Well, at least for now, the transcontinental flights will remain on 737 aircraft, but Alaska Airlines is launching service not to London or Paris, but to Rome.
Starting in May 2026, Alaska Airlines will launch flights between Seattle (SEA) and Rome (FCO), a distance of 5,688 miles. The flight will operate 4x weekly with the following schedule:
- Seattle (SEA) – Rome (FCO) dep 6:00 pm arr 1:45 pm+1 day (10hr45min, operating M, W, F, Su)
- Rome (FCO) – Seattle (SEA) dep 3:45 pm arr 6:00 pm (11hr15min, operating M, T, Th, Sa)
I love the light timing, which is perfect for sleeping when departing from Seattle.
The flight will utilize a Boeing 787-9 aircraft utilizing Alaska’s own branding (rather than being operated by Hawaiian Airlines) and tickets will go on sale this autumn.
A Personal Preference Of CEO
I have to admit, I’m not understanding the economics of the route. Or the aircraft the choice.
Serving Rome nonstop from Seattle is a dream come true. As an Italian American whose parents emigrated from Italy, this is a particularly meaningful addition to our network. Rome has been at the top of the list ever since we announced our new global gateway out of Seattle. Our guests have been asking for an easy way to get to Italy for years, and we’re thrilled to provide it to people in the Northwest and beyond. Andiamo – let’s go!
That’s very sweet.
Furthermore, Rome is far less competitive than London or Paris. The new service from the “Emerald City” to the “Eternal City” marks the first-ever nonstop service between the two points. It will doubtlessly be popular with leisure travelers
But can Alaska fill up this flight without any connecting traffic from Rome? As a oneworld member, there is no connectivity from Rome on partner carriers. Alaska thinks that it can by offering one-stop service to many of the smaller cities in Italy. Will a partnership with a carrier like Aeroitalia emerge?
Also, the choice of the 787-9 is interesting. I’m quite excited to see a Dreamliner branded for Alaska Airlines (its first widebody aircraft). At the same time, wouldn’t it make more sense to use that 787-9 to Tokyo (service from Seattle has already launched via a Hawaiian Airlines Airbus A330) and use the couple’s friendly A330 to Rome (which offers 2-2-2 seating in business class and 2-4-2 seating in economy class)?
Will Alaska remove any of the distinct Hawaiian features on the Dreamliner?
CONCLUSION
Alaska Airlines will launch service to Rome starting in May 2026 using a 787-9 from its Seattle hub. This will mark Alaska’s first foray into Europe and also represent the carrier’s first widebody jet, since the Dreamliner will be branded as Alaska Airlines.
Will this experiment be the start of a great expansion in Seattle for Alaska? Will Delta or ITA also launch service to Rome?
> Read More: First Look – Hawaiian Airlines 787-9
> Read More: The Widebody Implications For Alaska Airlines Of Hawaiian Airlines Merger
Im certain they will rip out the Hawaiian features, just like did with the VX aircraft. Alaska wants their interiors as boring as possible
Italians in Rome will be shocked when they see a plane land there with Bob Marley featured on the tail.
You mean Hillary Clinton.
Wow ! . I never realized ‘Chester’ “transitioned”. !!.. AS is such a progressive airline from the ‘left’ coast !
Next in line will be ‘Pualani’ !
When an airline makes a decision about international routes based on family heritage, the chances are very high that the best financial decision isn’t being made.
as much as some love to talk about the intense rivalry between AS and DL in SEA, AS’ steps seem to confirm that their longhaul expansion is trying to avoid direct competition with DL.
DL’s Italy service from DTW and MSP is summer seasonal only and I would doubt they will commit an aircraft for a summer seasonal route from SEA.
There are rumors of BCN being AS’ next expansion – which would make sense given the very strong demand for southern Europe travel by Americans.
The problem is that these routes will print lots of cash – but only for a few months per year. the big Euro hubs are where the year round demand is and there are no indications yet that AS is willing to or able to spend themoney to get slots – or that AA or BA will give slots to them.
over the Pacific, ICN is the only route that is directly competitive w/ DL and it isn’t hard to see how DL and KE will have the very strong upper hand.
and, yes, the Alaska and Hawaii branding has to go if AS wants to be taken seriously around the world.
Oh stop being an idiot shill. There is no rivalry in Seattle between Delta and anyone else, least of all Alaska. Delta is just another big corporate entity that occasionally dabbles in Seattle but doesn’t see it as any more important to them as Des Moines or Green Bay. Delta always pushes out a bunch of BS PR, then cuts back and moves on to places they actually care about. No different from United and American, Big Three legacy airlines which have only a small presence in Seattle. Everyone in Seattle knows this. Ironic comments from someone who says things about being “taken seriously”. LOL
“One of the most popular non-clickbait articles I’ve ever published on Live And Let’s Fly was a piece I wrote a day after the Hawaiian-Alaska merger was announced…” Yes, it was a decent post. You might go back and re-read my comments on that thread for some additional insights and guesses (set aside questions about photoshopping mountains…).
As a Seattle resident and someone who has long wondered and speculated about his hometown airline, I know a thing or two about how they operate their business (usually, pretty smartly).
They are not flying to Rome because the boss has Italian ancestors (though it’s a cute marketing point). They’re flying to Rome because 1) demand for flights to Italy are through the roof; 2) it is grossly under-served from much of North America, but especially the western 2/3 of the continent and most of all from the west coast. For millions of Italy-obsessed travelers, getting to Italy requires at least one, often two (sometimes more) stops, making the trip a long, painful slog (I know, I do it and will be going again soon – with two stops). Heck, it’s quicker and easier to get much of Asia (including secondary or tertiary cities, eg Sapporo or or Fukuoka) than it is to get to Rome from Seattle. I noted with a smile Alaska’s tag line in one PR piece yesterday: “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we can get you there in about 10 hours.” Oh, yeah, I’ll take another scoop of that, please.
Alaska picked Rome because there is so much demand and so little competition. This flight is going to be EXTREMELY popular.
Initial service looks like 4/week. As they take delivery of more 787s I’d expect service to go to daily (at least in the summer or “high season” which now seems to be from early March to end of October, as the world seems to have gone completely mad for Italy – ask anyone who has been there lately about the crowding).
Oh, BTW…Alaska says their new Europe-bound 787s will have “fully enclosed business class suites with lay flat seating” (something that bloggers and Alaska-haters seem to have missed completely). We will have to wait a few months to see exactly what those “fully enclosed suites” really are and they may ultimately disappoint, but as someone who looks forward to riding that plane to Europe (and to other distant destinations), I sure like what I’m hearing so far.
Just 10 hours to Rome, no connections, a lay-flat bed…that is gonna check all the important boxes for a LOT of folks living on the west coast. People love nonstops – the long, thin routes that 787s were designed for. There are more than a few other popular destinations that are equally under-served from the US west coast that are ripe targets for Alaska. Very popular destinations that are painful to reach from here: Athens, Barcelona, Madrid, Venice, Dubrovnik, Prague, and more. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and wishing Alaska great success on this route. It’s a bold, smart move.
Dick,
we get that demand to Italy is strong – just as it is to most of southern Europe from the US.
But that demand is not even close to enough to provide year round equal levels of capacity which is why 1. every other airline dramatically pulls down their capacity to Italy from the US and 2. do it from the eastern US where serving the US with a limited number of flights makes the most sense.
SEA is great as a Pacific gateway. If AS said it was going to announce HKG, SIN, SGN and SYD – none of which DL serves from SEA – I would say “go for it” but AS is thinking they will fly to the far “corner” of western Europe and serve just the western US – the same region that other carriers also serve via their more easterly hubs.
I have no doubt that AS will put a decent product on its 787s in time.
And this is not about the 787 but about AS’ route decision regarding FCO; again, they had announced flights anywhere along the Pacific Rim or to oneworld major hubs in Europe, it would make sense.
let’s see how it all works out…
FCO seems like a good choice to me. Unlike LHR it isn’t slot restricted. Unlike MAD, it’s somewhere people in Seattle actually want to go (though I personally love MAD). I can’t imagine anybody in Italy cares about flying an unknown airline to the Pacific Northwest, but it seems as good of a choice as anything else. It seems like at any given moment these days half of the United States is vacationing in Italy.
The market for this flight will be fine, they will do well. And it’s not just WA, OR, ID. Assuming we can stop attacking our neighbors for no reason, Alaska could capture a pretty nice market out of Vancouver and BC as well. What most execs at the Big 3 (and Air Canada) never seem to grasp is that flying from the west coast at 7 AM and landing at EWR, ATL, JFK, YYZ at 4 PM, likely hitting a delay, and running down a concourse to make a connection is a terrible way to start a vacation or business trip. People think it makes perfect sense to add a flight from Boston to Hawaii because it sucks to connect at LAX, but at the same time they will suggest that anyone flying from the West Coast should just connect in Charlotte the next time they are going to Europe. I am not a loyal AS flyer and they are not my favorite but it is really nice that when they schedule a transcon or internationl trip they set the times that are optimal for the PNW. When they first started flying to the East Coast they did the same thing, set arrival and departure times that were better optimized for departure and return to Seattle. The SEA-FCO flight leaves at the optimal time for dinner and sleep, and arrives at FCO at a time that allows for hotel checkin at FCO or connection to a short haul flight or train to final destination.
This will be the first non-stop flight from YVR/SEA/PDX that serves a city in southern Europe. I think it’s much better choice than another flight to LHR, or a flight to MAD.
For anyone in SEA, PDX, YVR (more than 9.2 million people within a 3-hour drive of SEA) – it should be as fast or faster to fly to Spain, Italy, Morocco on Alaska via FCO – than it would be on any other current option. With the added benefit of avoiding LHR and CDG, and having flight times that are better for connections. For many people, this is going to come down to their willingness to transit LHR or CDG on BA/DL/AF or drive I-5 for 2-3 hours and avoid those airports, which nearly everyone dislikes based on negative past experiences. A traveler would miss out on a stop at the BA Club Lounge but since there is rarely an available seat there I am not sure that really counts as much of a loss.
I think people are underestimating the number of people in the PNW who would travel to Italy or Spain in November, February, and March as well. It’s a ritual for people to leave the gray wet PNW winter for a week or two every winter just to get a break, I think there are plenty of people who would be willing to do that in Italy/Spain/Morocco rather than Mexico and Hawaii from time to time. I have no idea how big the PNW to Southern Europe market is, but Alaska will undoubtedly have a competitive advantage in that market compared to everyone else.
I would grant that part of AS’ TATL success might be the times that are better suited for west coast departures. Having to get up first thing in the morning on the west coast to make a connection in the eastern US and arrive in Europe first thing in the morning – which is the middle of the night on the west coast – is not very travel friendly.
The other part of AS’ strategy, though, might be that slots are much more available in the afternoon at European airports. Most of the international flights have departed.
And FCO does have slots – they just have open skies so any US airline can add flights – but they aren’t guaranteed a flight at any time of the day.
And afternoon arrivals and departures might help AS get into more congested airports when AS tries to go to those airports.
I still don’t see how 10 million people in the PNW (3% of the US population) are enough to support flights to heavily tourist areas of Europe for 4-6 months per year.
The largest vacation destinations for people from the PNW are Alaska and Mexico.
I still think that AS will focus on markets that are not well served from the PNW -and also avoid direct competiion with DL and other international airlines at SEA.
It might be worth noting that the only Aeroitalia destination from FCO on the Italian mainland is MXP. I can’t see AS getting any meaningful connections on the FCO end unless they get into bed with a multitude of carriers, including some that are rather niche (e.g. Bulgaria Air), and possibly even certain *A members outside the LH/UA JV (e g. Aegean, MS, Croatia).
Thats not true. ITA also flies to Florence, Naples, Venice, Bologna, and other cities on the mainland as well.
Ignore my last post, I had a beain fart, you were right.
… but we all know how ‘promiscuous’ AS is !
I agree that only time will tell how well this works. However, I also agree that those of us here in the PNW like to go to sunny destinations in the cold and wet winter months. Yes, that has often meant Hawaii or Mexico but statistics can be misleading –it has always been much easier to get to those destinations from here than to get to Southern Europe. Sometimes, if you build it, they really will come. I expect the 4 weekly flights will survive year round, probably with higher frequency during high season. The lack of a partner at FCO is indeed problematic but AS has shown an amazing ability for great partnerships for decades so there is hope that they will work something out.
I find talk of Europeans not reacting well to the Alaska brand just silly. United and Delta were once completely unknown outside of North America. If you wanted to fly a US carrier to Europe, it was PanAm or TWA. Europeans are price-sensitive but also like nonstops as much as North Americans. The current political situation aside, lots of Europeans travel to Seattle to get on Alaska cruises and the cruise season now stretches from May to October. If this travel is contracted with the cruise lines, it won’t be particularly high yield but does represent a potential steady revenue stream. It has, in part, fueled services by international airlines already.
Steve,
DL and UA have both been flying the Atlantic and Pacific for decades.
and American, Delta and United are all global names and represent all of the US.
Alaska and Hawaiian are both specific to states.
Yes, AS can build a reputation and it might not matter much if AS focuses on the local PNW market but no market depends solely on US-originating traffic.
The Alaska name will not be an asset in most of the world and might prove to be a liability.
Tim,
Apparently, I am a lot older than you. When I first started going to Europe, it really was just PanAm and TWA. TWA, Delta, and American didn’t even fly as far as Seattle. Delta and United didn’t fly to Europe. The idea that no Europeans will take advantage of nonstop flights to the PNW, regardless of branding, seems ludicrous to me.
Furthermore, there is a lot of foreign interest in visiting Alaska and Hawaii. They are more than just US states–they are exotic, iconic locales. Making it easier to get there could induce more Europeans to make thc trek and nany are already doing so for Alaska cruises. It’s true that it will take some time to build brand recognition abroad but my point is that after PanAm ceased operations, no one in Europe knew much about United or Delta either. Alaska has a strategy for growth and will eventually announce more European routes. Re-branding for this expansion would be the very worst thing they could do.
So, at this point, we are just down to a difference of opinion. Earlier in these comments, you said something very cogent–only time will tell if this works out. On that point, we are in complete agreement.