Sea-Tac Airport is about to offer nonstop flights to both Osaka and Papeete. Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines announced new year-round nonstop service connecting Seattle to Osaka, Japan, starting May 14, 2027, and to Papeete, Tahiti, starting June 11, 2027, with tickets already on sale.
The Osaka route will run four times weekly, while the Papeete route, which will operate as flight AS987, will fly three times a week, according to Alaska Airlines. Both routes will be operated under the Hawaiian Airlines brand using Airbus A330 aircraft, giving Seattle-Tacoma International Airport nonstop connections to both cities. The planes will feature lie-flat business-class Suites and complimentary Starlink Wi-Fi for Atmos Rewards members, and the airline says it plans to begin renovating the Hawaiian A330 interiors in 2028.
Introductory round-trip Main Cabin fares are being offered from Seattle starting at $999 to Papeete and $1,199 to Osaka, available through Monday, October 26. As KING5 reported, both new routes remain subject to government approval. Hawaiian Airlines will continue flying its existing Honolulu-to-Osaka and Honolulu-to-Papeete routes separately from the new Seattle service.
A Growing Global Map Out of Seattle
Osaka and Papeete become the eighth and ninth long-haul intercontinental routes Alaska and Hawaiian have added to their Seattle network, which already includes Tokyo, Seoul, Rome, London, Reykjavík, Athens and Paris. The buildout is part of what Alaska calls its plan to transform Seattle into a global gateway serving at least 15 long-haul intercontinental destinations by 2030. Alaska Airlines acquired Hawaiian Airlines in 2024, a merger that has fueled the combined carrier's push into widebody international flying from its Pacific Northwest hub.
Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci said the company is starting out with more international destinations on the horizon as it grows as the leading global airline on the West Coast. The company has leaned on Hawaiian's A330 fleet to operate the new Seattle routes.
Losses and Rising Fuel Costs Shadow the Expansion
The new routes arrive as Alaska Air Group reported a $76 million net loss for the second quarter of 2026. Jet fuel prices climbed 85% from a year earlier, according to Airways Magazine, a spike that added roughly $600 million in expenses to the airline's books. Despite the squeeze, nearly all of the carrier's expected capacity growth has been tied to long-haul international flying out of Seattle, and Alaska is projecting premium revenue will exceed 40% of total revenue by 2030, up from 35% today.
The Papeete bet also follows a cautionary tale from another carrier on the same route. Air Tahiti Nui suspended its own nonstop Papeete-Seattle service effective January 31, 2026, after operating it twice weekly, and began routing Seattle travelers through Los Angeles instead with seven to 11 weekly frequencies through partner airlines, per the company's own announcement on airtahitinui.com. According to View from the Wing, Air Tahiti Nui's Seattle flying generated a roughly $16 million loss in 2024 before that pullback.
How the New Routes Stack Up
Once it launches, Alaska's Seattle-Osaka service will join a short list of nonstop options from the mainland United States, where Osaka is otherwise served only by United out of San Francisco and Japan Airlines out of Los Angeles, according to One Mile at a Time. The same outlet notes that mainland service to French Polynesia otherwise runs through French Bee and United out of San Francisco, and Air France and Air Tahiti Nui out of Los Angeles — meaning Seattle travelers heading to Tahiti have mostly had to connect through another West Coast city until now.
For now, both routes hinge on the government approval still pending, and the promotional fares are only guaranteed through October 26. But if the schedules hold, Seattle flyers will have a nonstop path to two destinations that have previously had direct service from the Pacific Northwest.
