When Alaska announced that its first European route would be from Seattle to Rome/FCO next summer, there was some head-scratching all around. This is an airline that’s a member of oneworld. Wouldn’t it have chosen something with more connectivity? One of the most important European capitals? The only real reason that could be gleaned was that CEO Ben Minicucci was thrilled to be able to call his Italian mother to tell her that Rome was coming.
Yes, she was happy about that, but there’s obviously more to this story. After further review, I think I like this move as a way for Alaska to dip its toes into Europe. It’s not a conventional decision, but it is probably going to work out just fine and act as a proof of concept.
The route will begin on a B787-9 on May 11 of next year and run four days a week through the end of summer and into early fall. The end date has not yet been determined. The flight departs at 6pm from Seattle and gets back the next day at 6pm, so it takes a little more than one airplane to run this. I’m sure it will probably flow into Honolulu or something like that to keep the planes moving around the system.
But with the airline’s first Seattle long-haul routes in the post-Hawaiian merger era going to Tokyo and Seoul, you might have expected London and Madrid in Europe. But this is a different situation. In Asia, Hawaiian already flew to Tokyo and Seoul. This made it very easy to stand up new flights, already having a ground operation in those cities. There is no operation at all in Europe, so that means it was a blank slate.
I went into Cirium’s ARC/BSP data and pulled passenger numbers to Europe for May to August 2024 from the northwest corner of the US — Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming — plus Alaska and Hawaiʻi. It stands to reason that this would be Alaska’s primary catchment area, though it certainly could extend further into smaller cities in California, etc. So consider this somewhat conservative. Here are the top destinations in Europe based on daily passengers each way (PDEW).
Top Destinations in Europe (PDEW) from WA/OR/ID/MT/WY/HI/AK – May to August 2024
Data via Cirium, light gray markets are unserved from Seattle nonstop
Yes, the usual suspects are at the top of the list thanks to service from Delta and a variety of European carriers. But just look at how much demand there is to Rome. That is a LOT of people flying during the summer. Yes, Barcelona and Madrid might make more sense from a oneworld standpoint considering Iberia is a partner, but those are much smaller markets.
But of those people heading to Rome, where are they coming from? Well, you have more than 95 PDEW from Seattle followed by 47 from Portland, nearly 13 from Honolulu, and 12 from Boise. The rest are under 10 PDEW, but they are all in Alaska’s wheelhouse.
And which airlines are taking traffic today?
PDEW and Fare by Airline from WA/OR/ID/MT/WY/HI/AK to Rome – May to August 2024
Data via Cirium
The one standout here is WestJet, and it is clearly buying that traffic with some very low fares. In fact, the number one routing for passengers was WestJet over Calgary. Other airlines split between the hubs.
It should be notable that United takes more traffic than Delta. United is not a big player in Seattle while Delta has a hub there. And Delta has nonstop service to more than one city in Europe where connections can be handled, not to mention domestic connections. The biggest connecting point for United is a backtrack over San Francisco. Chicago, Newark, and Washington/Dulles follow, but the point is that this is a market where there seems to be opportunity, at least during summer. Delta will be even more hard-pressed to serve the market with ITA moving over to Lufthansa Group.
Even on American, most of its traffic heads down south to Dallas/Fort Worth first. These routings are inefficient, and there are a lot of people who are taking them. That suggests that Alaska could make a real dent, especially with its hometown loyalty.
Now, Delta could decide it wants to respond, but would it bother? At its peak to Rome this summer, Delta is flying 17x weekly from both Atlanta and New York/JFK along with 1x daily from Boston and Detroit plus 4x weekly from Minneapolis/St Paul. That is already a lot of service, but it hasn’t gone further west to Salt Lake or the West Coast. It doesn’t really need to. Those other flights can absorb plenty of demand from the west.
For Alaska, this is a pure leisure play. It doesn’t help with corporate contracts or anything that Delta really cares about the most. It seems like a heavy lift for Delta to bother responding. If Alaska wants to stick with sub-daily, seasonal flying on leisure routes, Delta will probably be pretty happy.
This gives Alaska the opportunity to try out its new long-haul service standard, work out the kinks, and do it without pissing off another airline. You can be sure that every big city in Europe is on its list, but Rome seems like the easiest way to slide into that part of the world. In the future, there will be more competitive, bigger routes to tackle. But that will come in time.
