Alaska Airlines enters the Europe market within days: Seattle–Rome launches May 6, 2026, Seattle–Barcelona follows on May 7, and Seattle–London Heathrow starts May 21, all flown with Boeing 787-9s, per the carrier's route announcements and launch coverage by outlets including Time Out and Aviation Week's route compilations. It is the first scheduled transatlantic service in the airline's 94-year history.
Why is Alaska crossing the Atlantic now?
The route logic is Hawaiian Airlines. After acquiring Hawaiian in September 2024, Alaska inherited a widebody fleet and the operating experience to fly long-haul internationally, and it chose Seattle — its largest hub — as the base for a global strategy that already placed widebodies on transpacific flying. Rome, Barcelona, and London extend the same playbook eastward: feed Seattle's local and connecting traffic into point-to-point long-haul routes, as reported in coverage of the carrier's plan.
The launch pattern is unusually compressed — two inaugural flights in two days, a third three weeks later — which spreads aircraft availability risk and gives the carrier three debut stories across one summer season.
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What can travelers actually book?
All three routes are on sale for daily service in summer 2026 schedules, with 787-9s offering Alaska's long-haul international cabin. Award space should appear in Alaska Mileage Plan and partner programs once inventory loads for each launch date; connections from across the West Coast feed the Seattle departures. Fares on newly launched long-haul routes typically run soft in the first months before the July-August peak tightens them.
Competition context matters for price: Seattle–London already faces daily nonstops from British Airways, Delta, and Virgin Atlantic, while Rome and Barcelona lacked nonstop service from Seattle before this year. Per OAG schedule data for summer 2026, more than 1,300 new routes start worldwide in the season, with transatlantic capacity among the fastest-growing segments.
What to watch after launch
Load factors through June and any announcement of a fourth European destination. Coverage through the summer will show whether Seattle can sustain daily widebody service to three cities at once — and whether Alaska's Europe bet changes connecting patterns at other West Coast gateways.