Alaska Airlines Launching Seattle To Rome Flights With Boeing 787

It’s quite a transformative time for Alaska Air Group, as the company acquired Hawaiian Airlines, and is turning Seattle-Tacoma into a global hub, with plans to launch a dozen long haul routes by 2030.

We’ve recently seen the airline add flights to Tokyo Narita (NRT), and then flights to Seoul Incheon (ICN) are coming as of September 2025. We’ve known that the third long haul destination out of Seattle will be to Europe, and we now have the details… it’s exactly what many of us were expecting.

Alaska adding Seattle to Rome flights as of May 2026

As of May 2026, Alaska Airlines will launch 4x weekly flights between Seattle (SEA) and Rome (FCO). The 5,688-mile flight will operate with the following schedule:

Seattle to Rome departing 6:00PM arriving 1:45PM (+1 day)
Rome to Seattle departing 3:45PM arriving 6:00PM

The flight will operate eastbound on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, with a block time of 10hr45min, and westbound on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with a block time of 11hr15min.

The flight is expected to go on sale as of the fall of 2025. As of now we don’t have an exact date for when the flight will go on sale, and when it will actually launch. We also don’t know if the route will be seasonal or year-round. Travelers can get on the “early access” list for the route here, and of course I’ll also cover when the flight actually goes on sale.

Alaska will operate the flight with a Boeing 787-9, featuring 34 business class seats and 266 economy class seats. This is exciting, as this is the first Alaska Air Group long haul route out of Seattle that will be operated by the Dreamliner, rather than the Airbus A330.

So, why is Rome Alaska’s first European destination out of Seattle? It’s a pretty logical choice:

• Rome is the most popular European destination currently not served nonstop from Seattle
• This routing also provides a convenient one-stop option from all kinds of points along the West Coast to Italy, since there’s not that much nonstop service
• There are no slot restrictions in Rome, so this is easier than trying to fly to an airport like London Heathrow (LHR), for example

Here’s how Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci describes the new route:

“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!”

Now, I think it’s highly likely that Delta is also about to magically announce a Seattle to Rome route. The big question is whether the announcement comes today, or just within the next week.