Alaska Airlines Manages To Score London Hearthrow Slots After Initially Being Knocked Back By Regulators

Alaska Airlines has managed to score a pair of valuable takeoff and landing slots at London Heathrow Airport after its plans to launch flights to the British capital were initially put in serious jeopardy when airport regulators denied the airline’s application for landing rights.

Thankfully, Alaska’s oneworld alliance partner American Airlines has come to the rescue and will lease out a slot pairing, allowing Alaska Airlines to launch flights to London Heathrow next Spring as planned.

American Airlines comes to the rescue with slot trade

In August, Alaska Airlines first announced that it intended to launch international flights from Seattle to London Heathrow on Boeing 787 Dreamliners that would be painted in the carrier’s new international livery.

At the time, Alaska said it intended to launch the new once-daily service in the Spring of 2026, although the airline wasn’t able to commit to any specifics about the flight, and that for a very good reason – at the time, it didn’t have the necessary landing rights to operate flights to Heathrow.

Alaska Airlines first had to apply to an independent slot coordination service, aptly named Airport Coordination Limited (ACL), which decides which airlines get to fly to and from London Heathrow, as well as other slot-controlled airports.

Unfortunately, Alaska’s bid to acquire a pair of takeoff and landing slots at Heathrow was rejected, putting its whole international expansion in danger before it even took off.

Of course, Alaska Airlines could have opted to commence flights to another London airport like Gatwick, but the carrier realizes that in order to attract the all-important business market, as well as connecting traffic, Heathrow is really the only option.

Thankfully, American Airlines has come to the rescue. On Thursday, ACL confirmed that the carrier had performed a so-called slot swap, allowing Alaska to lease a pair of slots between May 22, 2026, and October 24, 2026.

Provisionally, Alaska Airlines will have a landing time at Heathrow of 2:05 pm and a departure time back to Seattle at 4 pm UTC. This is, however, subject to change.

Why is it so hard for airlines to acquire slots at Heathrow?

Heathrow Airport has no spare left. It’s one of the most desirable airports in the world for airlines to launch flights, but with only two runways, Heathrow simply doesn’t have the capacity to handle every airline that would like to fly there.

As a result, Heathrow is designated as a slot-controlled airport. Airlines operate flights based on approved slot pairings – they can’t operate a flight without a slot pairing, and if they fail to use the slot enough, then it is taken off them and given to another carrier who can make better use of it.

Competition to get hold of available slots in a semi-annual slot award process is fierce, and there are far more airlines trying to get hold of takeoff and landing rights than there are slots.

Oman Air once paid $75 million for a single pair of slots

Airlines sometimes have to apply several times before they acquire the much-prized slots they are after but there are other way to get access to Heathrow and it normally involves handing over a lot of cash.

Back in 2016, Oman Air broke Heathrow records when it paid US $75 million for a single pair of coveted slots at the West London airport. A year before, American Airlines had paid $60 million for a pair of slots.

Those two pair of slots would have been for desirable landing and takeoff times, typically arriving in the early morning, although bargains can be had if airlines are a little nore flexible with the slot timings.

Alaska Airlines is also launching international flights to Reykjavik and Rome

London Heathrow is one of three new international destinations that Alaska Airlines plans to launch next year following its merger with Hawaiian Airlines.

The first international destination to be announced was Rome, Italy, followed by Reykjavik in Iceland and London Heathrow.

Unlike Heathrow, Alaska Airlines had no problems confirming its new flights to Rome and Reykjavik, and flights for both of these destinations are already on sale.

Ultimately, Alaska Airlines wants to turn its Seattle hub into a major international gateway for its domestic services across the United States, so we should expect to see the carrier announce additional long-haul international routes in the not so distant future.

The Alaska Airlines international experience

While Reykjavik will be served on Alaska’s existing Boeing 737 fleet, its flights to Rome and London will be operated by Boeing 787 Dreamliners in a new Aurora Borealis-inspired paint scheme that Alaska will only be used on long-haul international aircraft.

Alaska Airlines is using ex-Hawaiian Airlines 787s for these services, so while the exterior will get a refresh with the new paint scheme, the interior will be remaining very similar to how Hawaiian Airlines configured the jets.

Bottom line

Alaska Airlines has done some wheeling and dealing in order to aquire the slots that it desperately wanted in order to alunch flights between Seattle and London Heathrow beginning in May 2026.

What happens after the initial lease ends, though, remains to be seen. Alaska Airlines will presumably attempt to acquire a permanent slot pairing through the normal allocation process and if that yet again ends in failure, the airline will be forced to convince American Airlines to extend its lease.