Alaska Airlines has announced the launch of four new routes from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) for the 2027 summer season.
As well as the start of new seasonal weekly services linking Alaska’s largest city to Austin (AUS), Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) and Nashville (BNA), the carrier will also launch a new year-round nonstop service to Tokyo-Narita (NRT).
This notable new service, which is still subject to governmental approval, will be the only service between Japan and the US northernmost state. It will be operated daily between May 13 and September 7, 2027, and it will then restart after a three-month hiatus, in January 2028 with a thrice-weekly frequency. The trans-Pacific crossing from Alaska to Japan will take around eight hours 15 minutes of flight time and will cross the international date line.
Alaska Airlines will deploy a Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft on this route, making it the only service between the US and Japan to be operated by single-aisle aircraft.
The Alaskan carrier has fitted its B737 MAX 8 fleet with two different cabin configurations, each featuring three service classes. These have either 159 seats (12 in First, 30 in Premium Economy and 117 in Economy) or 161 seats (with 16 in First, 30 in Premium Economy and 115 in Economy).
While this will be the first nonstop scheduled service between Alaska and Japan in years, there was a time when Anchorage was used as a stopover for flights linking Japan to both the continental US and Europe.
The importance of Anchorage for Japan-bound traffic diminished significantly in the 1990s. The end of the Cold War, which opened up Siberian airspace to Western airlines (although it closed again in 2022), and the introduction of longer-range aircraft made the Alaskan stopover unnecessary.
Alaska Airlines also operates a nonstop daily service to Tokyo-Narita (NRT) from its main international base at Seattle-Tacoma (SEA), using Boeing 787-9 aircraft.
On October 20, 2026, the carrier also announced the launch of its second destination in Japan, Osaka-Kansai (KIX). This new Japanese route will start on May 14, 2027, and will be operated with Airbus A330 aircraft provided by Alaska Airlines subsidiary Hawaiian Airlines.