In October 2022, Air Tahiti Nui launched a new route from Papeete to Seattle. Then as of June 2023, the airline extended this service, to add a link between Seattle and Paris. There’s an update to this route — while the Papeete to Seattle route is sticking around, the Seattle to Paris route is being cut.
In this post:
Air Tahiti Nui cuts Seattle to Paris route
Since June 2023, Air Tahiti Nui has been operating a 2x weekly, year-round flight between Seattle (SEA) and Paris (CDG), which has been an add-on to the existing Papeete (PPT) to Seattle route. The route currently operates with the following schedule:
TN58 Papeete to Seattle departing 11:35PM arriving 11:00AM (+1 day)
TN58 Seattle to Paris departing 1:25PM arriving 7:55AM (+1 day)
TN57 Paris to Seattle departing 11:00AM arriving 12:15PM
TN57 Seattle to Papeete departing 2:30PM arriving 10:05PM
This service is operated using a Boeing 787-9. The airline has just four of these aircraft, and they each feature 294 seats, including 30 business class seats, 32 premium economy seats, and 232 economy seats.
There’s a change coming to this route, as flagged by @IshrionA. As of January 5, 2025, Air Tahiti Nui will discontinue its route between Seattle and Paris, as it will instead shift those Paris frequencies to Los Angeles. However, the airline intends to maintain 2x weekly flights between Papeete and Seattle.
Air Tahiti Nui shifts capacity back to Los Angeles
French Polynesia is obviously popular with visitors from Metropolitan France, though it’s more or less on the other side of the globe, nearly 10,000 miles away. As a result, Air Tahiti Nui exclusively operates one stop service between Papeete and Paris.
Historically, Air Tahiti Nui’s service to Paris has operated via Los Angeles, with the following schedule:
TN8 Papeete to Los Angeles departing 11:45PM arriving 10:35AM (+1 day)
TN8 Los Angeles to Paris departing 1:30PM arriving 9:05AM (+1 day)
TN7 Paris to Los Angeles departing 12:05PM arriving 2:15PM
TN7 Los Angeles to Papeete departing 4:30PM arriving 10:05PM
When Air Tahiti Nui launched the Seattle to Paris flight, it reduced its Los Angeles to Paris service from 7x weekly to 5x weekly. In other words, the airline just shifted a couple of its frequencies from Los Angeles to Seattle, to mix things up a bit.
I found shifting capacity to Seattle to be an interesting move:
- Obviously a significant number of passengers on Air Tahiti Nui’s flights from the US to Paris are simply connecting all the way through; so the question is how the airline can most profitably fill those remaining seats on the transatlantic flight
- Air Tahiti Nui has a partnership with Alaska Airlines, so I imagine the airline was hoping it might pick up some significant local demand between Seattle and Paris
- The two routes (via Los Angeles or Seattle) are roughly the same length, as they’re within 35 miles of one another
With just 2x weekly service between Seattle and Paris, I’m not surprised that the route probably wasn’t gaining much traction with the local market. It’s not like Los Angeles to Paris is an easy market either, but at least it can be operated daily, and there’s a lot more demand between Papeete and Los Angeles.
While Air Tahiti Nui’s business class hard product leaves a bit to be desired, this sure has been a fun, exotic way to travel between Seattle and Paris.
Bottom line
Air Tahiti Nui will be discontinuing its route between Seattle and Paris, after less than two years of operating in the market. The airline will maintain service between Papeete and Seattle, but the transatlantic frequencies will shift back to Los Angeles. This means that Air Tahiti Nui will be back to operating daily flights between Los Angeles and Paris.
What do you make of Air Tahiti Nui ending Seattle to Paris flights?
I agree they may benefit from having a second flight not via the US
They should go through YVR as distance are same and may open a market especially for people who can't travel to the us
When is the last scheduled January CDG-SEA flight?
As a resident of Tahiti, I am delighted that the flights to CDG have all been refocused on LAX.
SEA offers no advantages: an inconvenient airport, not very easy transit with no dedicated passage and a shabby, dirty lounge. At LAX everything is better for transit.
Another advantage of refocusing flights on LAX is that it will be easier to find space for LAX with a more flexible yield.
I think the...
As a resident of Tahiti, I am delighted that the flights to CDG have all been refocused on LAX.
SEA offers no advantages: an inconvenient airport, not very easy transit with no dedicated passage and a shabby, dirty lounge. At LAX everything is better for transit.
Another advantage of refocusing flights on LAX is that it will be easier to find space for LAX with a more flexible yield.
I think the airline also realised that Tahitians weren't getting off at SEA.
It is regrettable that, since the flights are code-shared with AS, the airline does not have the right to use the AS terminal at SEA with a better quality lounge than the one proposed.
So I'm delighted with this change.
Hi Ben! When you write that TN exclusively flies PPT-Paris, what about French Bee via SFO?
I thought AF flew the route via LAX, but their website was acting up...it only showed a special fare LAX - ....CAIRO! How ironic and funny....
Perhaps traffic to Egypt is in the proverbial toilet after Ben's adventure.
Serves them right.
Sad to see it go, as it was one of the easier business class awards to book out of SEA. But that probably correlates with its underperformance.
While we are losing this 2x weekly service, SEA is gaining year round 5x weekly SAS flights to CPH, seasonal 2x weekly Edelweiss flights to ZRH, and Finnair is increasing its seasonal flights to HEL from 3x to 5x weekly. Overall a significant increase in connectivity.
Thanks gir the info.
When is the change effective? And which days of the week are getting the additional capacity?
Flew them CDG-SEA this year. Very good daytime flight, service, amenities. Snagged it using Alaska miles: 55K in J. They use CDG Terminal 2 B/C check-in area which is calm versus madhouse E. The lounge was good as well. No complaints. Sad to see this unique option go away.
The two routes (via Los Angeles or Seattle) are roughly the same length, as they’re within 35 miles of one another.
I am reading this wrong as it is nearer 900 miles from LAX to SEA.
Gcmap.com
The great circle path from Paris to Tahiti passes nearly over Los Angeles, at a distance of 9765 miles. Routing via Seattle instead of LAX only adds 35 miles to the great circle path, for a total distance of 9800 miles.
Also, the Air Tahiti Nui business class hard product is perfectly fine. Have taken it numerous times and prefer it to United and Air France business class when going to Tahiti.
They could have been a bit more proactive about rescheduling flights when they did this. I had a J award seat in February on SEA-CDG and my flight got switched to LAX-CDG. With no connecting flight between LAX and SEA.
I found a unicorn. And it was taken away!
I loved this flight and heard about its demise on Tuesday when flying to LAX. I
Am still willing to fly to lax to position but that also means there are way less options for Alaska loyalists in Seattle who don’t wish to fly on AA/BA metal.
We are flying one more leg in early Jan and I’m happy we snagged seats.
Flying cdg-sea on 1/2. Looks like I may on the last flight in that direction.
I'm also flying CDG-SEA but on 1/5. I've not received a change of itinerary notice yet. I wonder if it will still operate.
This should come as a warning to Alaska Airlines that long haul 787 service is not a guaranteed success
Not exactly. AS has a huge hub in Seattle, with banks of flights and significant feed. A SEA-PPT flight is pure leisure, to a very niche market, not at all top of destinations that Americans go to en masse. The problem with Seattle is that it doesn't need to 2 airlines duking it out for control. Delta doesn't belong in Seattle, and never needed to be there in the first place. It decided to add...
Not exactly. AS has a huge hub in Seattle, with banks of flights and significant feed. A SEA-PPT flight is pure leisure, to a very niche market, not at all top of destinations that Americans go to en masse. The problem with Seattle is that it doesn't need to 2 airlines duking it out for control. Delta doesn't belong in Seattle, and never needed to be there in the first place. It decided to add Seattle as a hub to fund TPAC services, which do well enough, and would not work with the feed, but the domestic network DL runs in Seattle bleeds red ink, and is subsidized by profits from other hub markets. Seattle also doesn't need 4 airlines on SEA-TPE. There are pockets of saturation. In the long run, AS will probably offer a limited number of long haul routes on wide bodies, mixing up some core Asia with core Europe and not much else.
If Alaska gets Heathrow slots, it will have competition. Not sure if people want to Gatwick.
Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Taipei, Seoul all have competition.
Would Alaska want to fly to Stuttgart, Birmingham, Nice, Kaohsiung, and Osaka instead? No.
Derek is correct in that this signals a potential oversaturation of the SEA market. While it's a large enough O&D destination, it's still smaller than LAX/SFO, and there's only so much connecting traffic you can feed as well.
4x airlines flying to TPE is about balancing capacity along the West Coast. BR and CI reduced some frequencies from SFO and LAX to offset it. In addition, TPE is all about onwards connectivity to Asia, not...
Derek is correct in that this signals a potential oversaturation of the SEA market. While it's a large enough O&D destination, it's still smaller than LAX/SFO, and there's only so much connecting traffic you can feed as well.
4x airlines flying to TPE is about balancing capacity along the West Coast. BR and CI reduced some frequencies from SFO and LAX to offset it. In addition, TPE is all about onwards connectivity to Asia, not point to point. SEA as a TPAC hub looks nothing like the powerhouse UA has built up SFO to be. So the airlines are capitalizing off of that.
Furthermore, I'd say this is compounded by the increasingly saturated West Coast market. We have way too much capacity to the South Pacific sale we don't need every airline flying to BNE all of a sudden too.
There are some opportunities for AS to launch longhaul routes, but the routes to do so are increasingly limited.
Not at all surprising. The Seattle market is tough for long haul. There is a lot of it, but not all of it works well.