American's planned nonstop from LAX-NRT next year depends upon Delta and/or Continental giving up their Tokyo rights.

Delta has dormant rights from LAX and JFK to Tokyo, while Continental has rights from HNL. Typically these rights are lost if left unused for 90 days. The rights were extended until April 1, 2002, and Delta asked for a further extension to April 1, 2003. The government only went through October 1, 2002.

So, Delta has a big decision to make. If they don't restart their LAX and/or JFK flights to Tokyo by October 1, they will lose these rights permanently to American. Same for Continental.

Note that American's service cannot begin unless Delta and/or Continental gives up their rights and fails to restart service by October 1.

If American thinks they can make money off it, then Delta could probably too, therefore I think it'd be wise for them to keep up their route. Even if they were to do it a couple days a week (if that's possible) Narita slots are very valuable. DL ditched the JFK-NRT flights and AA took over, now they want to do the same at LAX. What is AA seeing that DL didn't? I think DL should bring it back. 1 flight to Atlanta isn't enough.

In respect to CO, I don't know why they have this route, it seems sort of out of place. Are you sure it wasn't to Guam? Anyway, if there are still as many Japanese tourists going to Hawaii/Guam then they should perhaps do something to hold on to it. Can a carrier lease its routes to someone? I think that'd be sort of cool. They could put it on hold for a while until they decide they need to start a NRT-CLE service  

-aio86

What AA sees (or rather has) that DL did not is a codeshare agreement with a Japanese carrier, namely JL. AA can codeshare with JL on these flights in order to help make them a success. However, I have read in the past that it is generally accepted that JFK-NRT is supposed to be a money loser for AA, at least in the short run, so who knows.

I do agree, however, that it does appear to be in DLs best interest to use these slots. The major obstacle, of course, is the depressed economy in both the US and Japan. With the massive losses experienced by the airlines in recent months it may not not be worthwhile to run a US-Japan flight at a loss just to keep the NRT slots. I remember reading somewhere that DL was losing a few hundred thousand dollars a day on JFK-NRT. Then again, losing the slots to AA puts DL at a competitive disadvantage relative to other US carriers when both economies improve so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

By the way, for all you DL people out there, I know that DL had, at one point, applied for a CVG-NRT route. Would this route be at all viable for DL? Certainly, CVG severely lacks the O/D traffic of LAX, SFO, JFK, etc. but would DL connections into CVG be enough to keep such a route afloat? Obviously, it seems to be the only other hub among DLs big three that could potentially support a route to NRT (I cannot seriously believe that DL would ever consider opening up an SLC-NRT route).

I believe Delta requested authority to fly from CVG to China, not Tokyo. They may also have applied to fly CVG-Tokyo, but I'm not sure about that.

CO had flights from HNL to NRT for a very long time. When they first introduced the flight, it was a direct flight from IAH-HNL-NRT. This was back in the late 80's, early 90's when CO had no aircraft to fly IAH-NRT nonstop even if they could get the authority. When they started to hit financial turbulence in the early 90's they dropped the IAH-HNL leg. They kept HNL-NRT operating through most of the 90's. During that time they also flew to Australia and New Zealand. So Aio86, the route is out of place when you look at CO's focus every the last few years. However this route is a vestige of the old CO when they were more centered around flying across the Pacific rather than to Europe and Latin America.

I heard one of the reasons they dropped the flight was that the times into NRT were not that desirable. Interestingly, this was the last flight CO utilized the 747-100.

It would be great to have CVG-NRT flights. There is such a huge Toyota/Nissan/Honda presence in the CVG market. I would have been thrilled if Delta would have moved their PDX-NGO (Nagoya) flight to Cincinnati. It would have been a Toyota shuttle!

I would not expect CO to drop any flights that they have into NRT. I understand that the EWR-NRT legs are very profitable and I know multiple people who have flown that route numerous times and have said that the plane is always jammed packed every flight.

I LOVE EWR, what ORD is talking about has nothing to do with EWR or IAH to NRT. CO uses those allotments. CO has dormant rights to NRT from HNL.

The CVG-NRT authority was requested some years ago when the US and Japan amended their bilateral. It was requested at the same time as ATL-NRT, PDX-KIX, and PDX-FUK. Of course, plans may have changed which is understandable given the current environment but DL did once have an interest in serving NRT from CVG.

OA412,

Contrary to your statement, DL would not be losing slots to AA. AA was awarded additional slots when the new runway opened up at NRT. This is where the slots from JFK-NRT came from too. We are talking about route authority and not slots.....these are two different things.