Delta Air Lines announced new flights from Sea-Tac Airport to Asia and Europe on Tuesday, adding Beijing in China and Osaka in Japan and bolstering its repertoire of flights to Amsterdam.

The flights from Sea-Tac to Beijing and Osaka will begin next summer. Three additional weekly flights to Amsterdam are slated to start June 1. The airline, which merged with Northwest Airlines last year, already offers seven weekly flights to Amsterdam, hub for its European partner, Air France-KLM.

The Beijing flights begin June 4. The airline will challenge China’s Hainan Airlines, which already flies that route. Osaka flights are due to start June 7. Northwest Airlines once flew that route but abandoned it. Delta already flies from Sea-Tac to Tokyo daily. The airline earlier this year dropped flights from Sea-Tac to London to free up an aircraft for other overseas routes from other airports.

Delta will use its code-sharing arrangements with SeaTac’s Alaska Airlines to feed the international flights and to get international passengers to other domestic destinations that Delta doesn’t serve.

Sea-Tac in recent years has both gained and lost international service. Last summer, longtime Sea-Tac tenant SAS halted service from the Puget Sound area to Copenhagen as part of a systemwide cutback. Delta also ended its London service, although British Airways continued its service to the English capital.

Air France added nonstop service from Sea-Tac to Paris in 2007. Aeromexico began serving Mexico City and San Jose del Cabo from Sea-Tac in 2008. Lufthansa started service to Frankfurt and Hainan to Beijing last year. Icelandair began flying from Sea-Tac to Reykjavik last summer.

John Gillie, The News Tribune

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