It’s an exciting time for Alaska Air Group, following the company’s takeover of Hawaiian Airlines. We’re seeing the airline totally shift its strategy, including turning Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) into a global hub, with the goal of having 12 long haul destinations by 2030.
The airline has just revealed an exciting update for its second Seattle long haul route.
In this post:
Alaska upgrades Seoul Incheon flight from A330 to 787
In May 2025, we saw Alaska & Hawaiian launch daily flights between Seattle and Tokyo Narita (NRT). Then as of September 2025, we’ll see Alaska & Hawaiian launch 5x weekly flights between Seattle and Seoul Incheon (ICN).
Up until now, the plan has been for both of these initial flights to be operated by the Airbus A330, which has historically been Hawaiian’s primary long haul aircraft. However, Hawaiian is also slowly taking delivery of Boeing 787s, which feature a much improved onboard product.
Along those lines, there’s an exciting update, as flagged by @IshrionA. Alaska & Hawaiian now plan to launch the Seoul Incheon flights with the Boeing 787, rather than with the Airbus A330.
As of now, there are no plans for the Tokyo Narita route to be operated by the 787. We do know Alaska’s third long haul route from Seattle will be 4x weekly flights to Rome (FCO) as of May 2026, and that will also be operated by the 787.
For the time being, Alaska and Hawaiian continue to remain on separate operating certificates, so these flights are still Hawaiian branded. However, by 2026, that should change. For example, Alaska’s route to Rome will be the first Seattle route to not be Hawaiian marketed. The plan is eventually for all 787s to get Alaska branding.
Alaska needs to figure out its long haul fleet, stat
I think Alaska will have pretty good luck becoming a long haul competitor out of Seattle, given its huge connecting network, plus very loyal following in the Pacific Northwest.
Admittedly the airline also has an uphill battle — it faces lots of existing competition out of Seattle (including from Delta), it doesn’t belong to any long haul joint ventures (at least not yet), and it doesn’t necessarily have much name recognition outside the United States.
For premium cabin customers, the problem is also the onboard product. Hawaiian’s A330s are being used for the first Seattle long haul route, and while these cabins are perfectly nice leisure oriented flights to Hawaii, the product is much less competitive for longer flights out of Seattle.
Alaska has committed to upgrading the interiors of these A330s, though nothing has been announced beyond that, and we haven’t seen any official timeline. If you ask me, upgrades are needed ASAP. In terms of reputation and perception, I think the current interiors can also do damage.
Let’s say a business travel decides to fly Alaska from Seattle to Tokyo Narita, only to end up in a 2-2-2 product. Odds are that they might just take Alaska off their list of airlines to consider for long haul flights in the future.
By comparison, the 787 has a much better onboard product, with business class suites with doors. Hawaiian actually beat American and United to the punch with this, as all three airlines are introducing the same general product. The one issue with the 787s is that they don’t have Wi-Fi. While Hawaiian has installed Starlink Wi-Fi on its A330s, it hasn’t yet been installed on 787s.
So yeah, I hope Alaska comes up with a plan soon to retrofit and upgrade A330s, and also to install Wi-Fi on 787s. With the very slow pace at which the airline group is getting 787s, more long haul routes will invariably have to be operated by the A330. A competitive onboard experience is more important than ever before, given how many airlines have upped their product.
Bottom line
Alaska is upgrading its new route from Seattle to Seoul Incheon from an Airbus A330 to a Boeing 787. This is great news in terms of passenger experience, since the 787s have a much better onboard product, especially in premium cabins. The only catch is the lack of Wi-Fi, at least as of now.
I’m happy to see Alaska focusing on putting its 787s on long haul routes out of Seattle, where they’re most needed.
What do you make of Alaska upgrading its Seoul Incheon route to the 787?
Not having WiFi is a hard no.
Plans are in the works to swap out A330 for Dreamliners with Boeing. As in the past Alaska Co. will be all Boeing in the next 36 months........... Chao from you man INSIDER the Boardroom
Those Y seats on the Hawaiian A330s are knackered. The cushioning is gone, the back rests are loose/slide down and the armrests are scratched up. Much rather have a new seat on the Dreamliner.
Alaska needs to stop with the absurdity of branding anything Alaska, or Hawaiian. They were so foolish not to take over the Virgin brand when obtaining Virgin America. Despite the cost. Now they need to just suck it up and come up with a global name and look. Bob Marley on the tail is just not going to cut it out there. Europeans and Asians booking flights on, umm, Alaska?
Amateur. 90% of their traffic will come from the US. Destroy that brand equity? Geez…
By the way, DL strategy is also US originating pax’s. Only UA splits the strategy by point of sale. From meetings with all of their leadership…
The problem is they would have had major public pushback from acquiring Hawaiian from Hawaiian residents if they hadn’t promised to keep the brand alive. An Alaska flight is nothing like the soft product on a Hawaiian flight. If you think this wouldn’t be a problem, refer to CVS acquiring Longs Drugs years ago. Massive public pushback, to the point they’re still called Longs, even though it’s a CVS once you enter the drawer. Hawaii...
The problem is they would have had major public pushback from acquiring Hawaiian from Hawaiian residents if they hadn’t promised to keep the brand alive. An Alaska flight is nothing like the soft product on a Hawaiian flight. If you think this wouldn’t be a problem, refer to CVS acquiring Longs Drugs years ago. Massive public pushback, to the point they’re still called Longs, even though it’s a CVS once you enter the drawer. Hawaii isn’t the mainland, there is public pushback against that type of behavior.
• HA871 Depart SEA 2:50 PM Arrive ICN 6:35 PM (next day)
• HA872 Depart ICN 8:35 PM Arrive SEA 2:45 PM
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Aren't SEA and ICN too distant for a turn-around? Is HA parking a plane at ICN for over 24 hours?
What do you mean? Most long haul flights are two hour turn arounds. Crews overnight and then fly home the next day while the inbound crew rests.
Actually you have a point, outbound flies 5 minutes after the inbound arrives. My guess is they’re allocating two airplanes for the flight. The longer inbound flight is probably a combination of wind direction and extra taxi time at ICN
Seems like an odd choice to launch flights to Seoul DL has a daily flight, KE/OZ each have a daily flight and they’re all about to belong to the same transpacific JV so I just can’t imagine how AS will be able to compete on this route.
It will be hard for sure.
I'm also not sure because Koreans simply prefer the native Korean airlines of Korean Air and Asiana much more.
Given the chance I'm not sure Alaska is ever the top choice for Korean nationals or Korean Americans.
Delta doesn't even fly LAX or JFK to ICN despite those being the largest Korean American populations because of how favored the Korean airlines are.
There's only so much demand to the RoK, I suppose, and with KE operating two A380s from ICN to JFK & back every day it's no surprise that DL decided to codeshare on that route. The same argument applies to LAX. How Delta customers feel about being booked in Korean's rather ordinary A380 "Prestige Class" instead of Delta One on an A350, I couldn't say.
I'm scratching my head on choosing ICN as their next route. Delta flies there as its main asian hub, with onward connections by Korean Air. Alaska would have to depend entirely on O&D traffic, and half of that (the Korean side) would probably choose Korean/Delta. Maybe there's some connecting traffic from nearby Alaska strongholds like PDX but that's about it.
This route seems primed for failure. Unless the state of Alaska and the PNW region...
I'm scratching my head on choosing ICN as their next route. Delta flies there as its main asian hub, with onward connections by Korean Air. Alaska would have to depend entirely on O&D traffic, and half of that (the Korean side) would probably choose Korean/Delta. Maybe there's some connecting traffic from nearby Alaska strongholds like PDX but that's about it.
This route seems primed for failure. Unless the state of Alaska and the PNW region has a massive amount of traffic to Korea that I'm not aware of. There are plenty of other O&D heavy destinations that Alaska could have chosen (I think Rome is smart, for example). Hard to see choosing ICN so early as anything but an emotional push to take on Delta right away.
I did some googling and London, Tokyo and Seoul are the three biggest intercontinental business travel markets out of Seattle. LHR slots are extremely hard to get, if they could’ve gotten one I bet that would’ve been the third route over FCO.
AS have a loyal following of business travelers in Seattle, I know way more people with AS cards than DL cards. I imagine as Asiana folds into KE their Seattle route will go...
I did some googling and London, Tokyo and Seoul are the three biggest intercontinental business travel markets out of Seattle. LHR slots are extremely hard to get, if they could’ve gotten one I bet that would’ve been the third route over FCO.
AS have a loyal following of business travelers in Seattle, I know way more people with AS cards than DL cards. I imagine as Asiana folds into KE their Seattle route will go away and the market will be less crowded.
The problem AS will face is DL is big enough to lose money on individual routes to force AS our, while AS is not
Does seem a bit weird that they have 2/3 with basically no connecting traffic (NRT would obviously have a fair bit, TYO a lot but FCO would be limited to a few inter European, maybe North African routes and ICN has what maybe HKG and another way to get to Tokyo possibly?). Qantas does a little of this kind of thing seasonally which seems to work OK-Ish but
You're not aware. There are millions of Korean people in the SEA metro. The flight will be fine with O&D let alone connections via PDX, which has plenty of Koreans as well.
This is going to be a giant failure on Alaskas part. The incoming capacity dump and subsequent price competition by competitors will chase Alaska out of the long haul business. Competing airlines can support loses on a single route in the short term across there long haul network while Alaska won’t have that luxury. At best this becomes a niche premium leisure hub
Yeah the 787 Premium cabin its better but the A330 economy seats are better hard to beat the 2-4-2 configuration and the seats are wider 18" vs 17.1".
Pualani Platinum here. I will take the A330 in Econ over the 787 any day. 2-4-2 with the almost an extra inch of seat width wins for me. The Starlink wi-fi is also a total differentiator as well. It is blazing fast and consistent, allowing me to stream anything or work the entire flight.
Would have to disagree that this is 'good': a better product for 18/34 passengers does not outweigh a clearly worse product for hundreds (without Wi-Fi; makes a huge difference in Y)
Oh come on, even if you don’t buy into the whole “better atmosphere” argument about the 787, it’s still a much preferable aircraft to the 330. And most passengers (even in J) do not purchase wifi on flights…. they just watch inflight entertainment or their own downloaded media.
It's a huge difference when the Wi-Fi is free and extremely fast. I've done HA 823 SEA-NRT during the daytime, I was astonished that most were using their phones to watch videos or social media, though so was I. Transpacific flights westward are timed that passengers will naturally be awake for a lot of the trip as well, unlike a redeye or an early AM westbound flight. Makes the time go by in a cramped seat; way nicer.
I don’t see how the 787 is any better than an a330 in y. I’d take extra seat width over aircraft modernity any day. The most comfortable flights I’ve had in Y were in old clapped out Iranian airplanes with seating configs from the 80s and 90s, and the BA EU 767s. The worst were in brand spanking new A320 NEO series aircraft in Europe
What moron would launch a new aircraft without wifi?
I do believe that starlink was to be used but had not been certified.