Five U.S. carriers are vying for four pairs of daily slots to Japan's Haneda airport, which if approved would mark the first time a U.S. carrier has served the downtown Tokyo airport in more than 30 years.
American Airlines, Continental Airlines and its Continental Micronesia subsidiary, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines on Tuesday all filed with the U.S. Department of Transportation for nonstop service to Haneda International Airport. Any applications approved by the department would allow flights to begin in the fall, when Haneda is scheduled to open a new runway.
Although it's one of the world's busiest airports and the closest airport to downtown Tokyo, Haneda has remained a largely domestic airport and has not seen direct service to the United States since Narita opened in 1978, according to Will Ris, senior vice president of government affairs for American Airlines. In December, however, the United States and Japan finalized an Open Skies agreement allowing both countries' carriers unrestricted operations to each other's airports
(BTNonline, Dec. 14).
American Airlines filed for two daily slots to offer service from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport beginning Oct. 1. The flights would be on 247-seat Boeing 777 aircraft.
Continental wants to provide service from two of its hubs, Newark Liberty International Airport and A.B. Won Pat International Airport in Guam, beginning in late 2010. It would fly Boeing 777 aircraft from Newark and Boeing 767-400 aircraft from Guam.
Delta, which already has flights between Narita and 11 U.S. cities, is seeking nonstop service from four cities, beginning Oct. 31: Seattle, Detroit, Los Angeles and Honolulu. All flights would be on 403-seat Boeing 747-400 aircraft with the exception of the Seattle service, which would be 298-seat Airbus A330-300 aircraft.
United, which also has service to Narita, filed for daily nonstop service from San Francisco International Airport on Boeing 777-200 aircraft.
Hawaiian Airlines proposed twice-daily flights from Honolulu beginning in late October on 264-seat Boeing 767-300ER aircraft and one of three 294-seat new Airbus 330-200 aircraft joining its fleet later this year.