US airlines gear up for next Tokyo Haneda liberalisation

Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are both eager to land more flights at Tokyo Haneda airport when the Japanese government opens the airport to more international service in 2020. While the number of frequencies has yet to be determined, daytime slots that are evenly split between Japanese and US carriers are expected, airline executives told Flightglobal at the Boyd Group International Aviation Forecast Summit in Denver this week. The next round of slots in Haneda will be in 2020, said Joe Esposito, senior vice-president of network planning at Delta, at the conference. We'll be pursuing more Haneda slots as that becomes really the airport of preference for Tokyo. Air service to Tokyo from the USA is split between Haneda and Narita airports, with the former limited to 12 daily flights evenly divided between Japanese and US carriers. All Nippon Airways ANA has four flights; Delta, Hawaiian Airlines and Japan Airlines two flights each; and American Airlines and United one flight each.