Alaska Airlines upgrades Seattle-Tokyo route with Hawaiian’s new Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines are making a big change on their flights between Seattle and Tokyo.

Starting in January, it'll be Hawaiian's beautiful new Boeing 787 Dreamliner operating the route between Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) and Narita International Airport (NRT).

For travelers flying between the two cities, it's a significant upgrade from Hawaiian's older Airbus A330 currently flying between the Pacific Northwest and Japan: This shift will swap in a new, state-of-the-art cabin with business-class suites for the older product found on board Hawaiian's legacy long-haul fleet of planes.

It'll also give Alaska Air Group (the parent company of Alaska and Hawaiian) a more competitive onboard product with chief Seattle rival, Delta Air Lines, on these transpacific flights.

It won't be good news for every Hawaiian route, though: A spokesperson confirmed the airline will be shifting one of its existing Dreamliners off another route to upgrade SEA-NRT.

A transpacific upgrade

Alaska and Hawaiian merged late last year, and promptly announced plans to launch a global gateway at Seattle, Alaska's home base.

I tagged along in May when the airlines launched their long-haul era with Tokyo service operated by Hawaiian.

As exciting a moment as it was for the company, though, the A330 flying the route definitely wasn't the star of the show itself, with older seats and a 2-2-2 configuration up in the business-class cabin that's a far less alluring product than the one Hawaiian debuted on its brand-new fleet of Dreamliners last year.

But things will change right off the bat in 2026, the company said Tuesday.

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Between early January and mid-April, passengers flying between Seattle and Narita will get the Hawaiian Dreamliner complete with 34 Leihoku suites featuring sliding privacy doors — not to mention an overall updated experience in the main cabin.

All-new experience on the horizon

Alaska and Hawaiian didn't share what the aircraft plans are for the Tokyo route beyond April.

That may be by design.

Earlier this spring, I reported the company is planning to unveil an all-new flagship international experience for its long-haul routes.

The plan, Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci told me, is for all long-haul international routes out of Seattle (including the Tokyo one) to be operated by Alaska — not Hawaiian.

It's not clear when Alaska might take over the Tokyo flights from its new sister airline, but expect this route to see more change in the future, in the form of a new onboard experience.

Alaska already announced it will be operating Dreamliner flights to Rome starting in May 2026.

Booking Hawaiian's Dreamliner to Tokyo

In the meantime, if you're hoping to use points and miles to book Hawaiian-operated flights between Seattle and Tokyo for early next year, you have a couple of options:

• Use miles from your Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan account, or transfer points to your Alaska account at a 1:1 ratio from Bilt Rewards.
• Use remaining miles in your HawaiianMiles account, though transfers from a number of partner programs to HawaiianMiles have ended (including from American Express).

Keep in mind, you can also still move miles seamlessly between your Mileage Plan and HawaiianMiles accounts, for now.

New loyalty program next month

But big changes are coming on the loyalty front for these newly merged airlines, too. In the coming weeks, Alaska Air Group is planning to announce an all-new joint loyalty program that will serve both airline brands.

Suffice to say, it's a time of big change at Alaska and Hawaiian, and many more developments are on the horizon.

Hawaiian adds additional wintertime flights

Hawaiian is also adding additional domestic and international flights to and from its Honolulu base during the peak winter season.

The changes include:

• Daily service from Honolulu to Sydney between Dec. 18, 2025, and Jan. 31, 2026 — up from five weekly round trips.
• A fifth daily flight between Honolulu and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) during the peak Thanksgiving (Nov. 21-Dec. 1) and winter holiday (Dec. 19, 2025-Jan. 6, 2026) travel rushes.
• A fourth daily Hawaiian-operated flight with a large, wide-body jet between Honolulu and Seattle between late-November and mid-April. That's on top of two daily round trips flown by Alaska.

"We're excited to offer our guests more options to connect with loved ones or enjoy a warm winter getaway," Alaska Vice President of Revenue Management and Network Planning Kirsten Amrine said in a statement Tuesday.

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