U.S.-Japan deal a defeat for Delta – Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You may have heard that the US and Japan reached an agreement to allow for daytime flights to Haneda Airport. I was asked what this meant for Delta by the hometown newspaper. Despite Delta’s dire warnings, I don’t expect this to be the end of the world just yet.
Cranky on the Web: Liberalizing Haneda
9 comments on “Cranky on the Web: Liberalizing Haneda”
I have little sympathy for Delta’s position. More access to Haneda is better for the traveler. Moreover, Delta discontinued its service to Haneda out of Seattle. It obviously could not make it work, but that failure does not give it the right to preclude other carriers from providing the service.
No one has had much success with the HND night slots from the Continental US. So, it’s not a Delta specific issue. I understand Delta’s position since this will put them in a much weaker position with respect to their NRT operations since they don’t have a Japan based alliance partner. Their position makes sense for their business.
I generally agree more competition is good and Delta’s position is weak. However, I also understand that moving the goalposts on Delta is troublesome. Delta made a large investment in Narita with the understanding that Haneda’s slots would not change much.
“…with the understanding that…”
What understanding? Is it written down in DL’s agreements for serving NRT? If not, and if it really formed an integral part of DL’s decision to invest at NRT, then it should have been. Buyer’s remorse isn’t an argument; it’s a whine.
what people do not remember is that northwest airlines had unlimited slots at any time of the day in haneda….before narita was built
I doubt very much if Japan cares what DL thinks or does. If DL were to cut service at NRT it wouldn’t be noticed since between JL/NH/AA/UA/HA life would still continue.
According to the Asahi Shimbun, ANA will get four of the new Japanese daytime Slots at Haneda. This is a big potential advantage to United and Star Alliance. The verbal battles on the new slot applications could be quite amusing.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201602190063
The article says that DL expects to get one daytime slot at Haneda. So… doesn’t that solve most of the problem? DL’s Tokyo O&D traffic would largely fly this flight, and its connections to elsewhere in Asia would go through Narita.
Admittedly: this doesn’t give an answer for people who want to fly DL between Tokyo and elsewhere in Asia… but is that really much of DL’s traffic on those routes? (I dunno… maybe it is?)
Sure, Delta would be better off with a Japanese partner… but this announcement doesn’t change that fact either way.
Grichard – Not really. Delta needs a lot more than one flight because it has a lot of different hubs in the US. But let’s say it did start Atlanta – Haneda with this. Well, then the Narita flight falls apart. Without the local traffic, the Narita flight doesn’t have enough local demand to justify operating the flight just for connecting purposes. The whole hub would end up falling apart if it tried to run a split operation like that.
But at this point, that’s not an issue since it’s still pretty heavily restricted.
I get where Delta is coming from, but in terms of the best outcome for consumers, continue liberalization definitely makes sense.