Air Tahiti Nui will be canceling one of its two routes to the United States, and this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
Air Tahiti Nui cuts Seattle flights after a few years
Air Tahiti Nui has just updated its schedule to reflect that it’ll be cutting its route between Papeete (PPT) and Seattle (SEA) as of January 28, 2026. For context, as of recently the route has operated 2x weekly with the following schedule:
TN52 Papeete to Seattle departing 7:00AM arriving 6:15PM
TN51 Seattle to Papeete departing 8:30PM arriving 4:00AM (+1 day)
The 4,784-mile flight is blocked at 9hr15min northbound and 9hr30min southbound. As is the case with all of Air Tahiti Nui’s routes, this one is operated by a Boeing 787-9.
For context, the French Polynesian carrier launched this route in October 2022, as part of a larger partnership with Alaska Airlines. Then in June 2023, the airline extended this route, adding service from Seattle to Paris (CDG). As you’d expect, there’s lots of connectivity between French Polynesia and Metropolitan France, and while that route previously exclusively operated through Los Angeles (LAX), the airline wanted to mix it up a bit.
However, the route didn’t prove to be a success, unfortunately. As of January 2025, Air Tahiti Nui cut its Seattle to Paris route, and now as of January 2026, the airline will be cutting Seattle service altogether.
This is Air Tahiti Nui’s most unprofitable route
News of Air Tahiti Nui cutting Seattle flights shouldn’t come as a surprise. Recently I wrote about how Air Tahiti Nui has to restructure, as the airline is losing money on all routes but one. Based on the available information, here’s what we know about the financial performance of service to Air Tahiti Nui’s five destinations for 2024:
- Seattle (SEA) generated a loss of 1.68 billion XPF (16.3 million USD)
- Tokyo Narita (NRT) generated a loss of 875 million XPF (8.5 million USD)
- Auckland (AKL) generated a loss of 274 million XPF (2.7 million USD)
- Paris (CDG) generated a loss of 212 million XPF (2.0 million USD)
- Los Angeles (LAX) generated a profit of 1.1 billion XPF (10.7 million USD)
As you can see, Los Angeles is the only profitable route, and on top of that, Seattle is by far the most unprofitable route. The Seattle route has been more unprofitable than the three other money-losing routes combined. Demand has been really low, with flights consistently less than half full.
So we’ll see what’s next for Air Tahiti Nui, and which route the airline decides to add instead. It seems that the frontrunners are Honolulu (HNL), San Francisco (SFO), and Sydney (SYD), as each destination has distinct advantages.
While Seattle is a major market and the partnership with Alaska was useful, the reality is that the geography of Seattle just doesn’t make sense for this kind of service. Seattle is a geographically advantageous airport for flying across the northern part of the Pacific (or Atlantic), while it’s quite out of the way if you’re looking to travel to the southern part of the Pacific.
Bottom line
As of January 2026, Air Tahiti Nui will be cutting its route between Papeete and Seattle. We’ve known that this route was losing a lot of money, so it’s not surprising to see Air Tahiti Nui cut it. Despite the Alaska partnership and the attempt at flying to Paris out of Seattle, the load factors just never reached an acceptable level.
Hopefully the airline can find a more profitable (or at least less unprofitable) destination to send the plane to instead.
What do you make of Air Tahiti Nui cutting Seattle flights?