Japanese and US carriers are preparing to introduce a raft of new international flights from Tokyo Haneda once a fourth runway opens at the airport in October.
Both All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL) are offering a handful of new flights. ANA is introducing flights to five destinations, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Bangkok, Singapore and Taipei Songshan, while JAL is inaugurating service to San Francisco, Paris, Honolulu, Bangkok, Songshan and Singapore. JAL plans to cut its Tokyo Narita-San Francisco service once the new Haneda flights begin.
The highly-anticipated Japan-USA open skies agreement finalised last year allowed US carriers some, but not full, access to Haneda and Narita. Unlike true open skies agreements, only four Haneda slots were allotted to US carriers. In order for the pact to take affect, Japanese carriers needed to reach anti-trust immunity with their US counterparts. A complex formula was also negotiated for expanding US carrier slots at Narita, which is further from Tokyo's city centre.
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Delta, American and Hawaiian were awarded the four slots to Haneda. Delta plans to offer flights from Los Angeles and Detroit, and American won rights to serve Handea from New York's John F Kennedy airport. Hawaiian was granted authority to introduce flights from Haneda to Honolulu.
While Delta chief executive Richard Anderson says it is unusual to have a route case after an open skies proceeding, "I think our government did a good job of cracking the barrier there, we just need to continue the progress, we need to be able to put a dozen flights into Haneda and run our hub out of Haneda, not of Narita".
US carriers operations at Haneda are allowed between 22:00 and 7am, which means for American its aircraft is idle on the ground for roughly eight hours. American says while the ground time is somewhat unusual for Haneda, turning the aircraft more quickly would mean arriving at New York's John F Kennedy airport in the middle of the night, "which customers would not like", the carrier explains. Airport customs would also be closed at that time.
Hawaiian also appears satisfied with the Haneda slot times. The carrier says departing Haneda just before midnight and arriving at Honolulu around noon the same day "allows for a full day of work before departure and a first full afternoon after arriving in Honolulu".
Source: Flight Daily News
