At this point, a crew rumor: step 2 after HA's JV is in place, HA and JL will seek cabotage within Japan on HA metal.

what is the purpose? Is it to simply a desire to increase the aircraft utilization, or is there a perceived "brand awareness" benefit having an HA domestic flight in Japan more so than having JL run the same route?

I imagine the purpose would be to have a single aircraft start in one city in Japan, stop in another, before flying to Honolulu. Neither city has enough demand to fill an A330 on its own but combined they do. If HA had cabotage rights, they could fill the plane on the domestic sector with local passengers rather than having it half-full with only Hawaii-bound passengers.

I can’t imagine any country would allow cabotage, much less Japan. If I had to guess - and assuming this was based on fact - I’d think this would be to resurrect the SDJ-CTS link or maybe adding FUK back with a tag to CTS. I’ll believe it when I see it though.

obelau24 wrote:

I can’t imagine any country would allow cabotage, much less Japan. If I had to guess - and assuming this was based on fact - I’d think this would be to resurrect the SDJ-CTS link or maybe adding FUK back with a tag to CTS. I’ll believe it when I see it though.

FUK is too faraway from CTS with over 2 hours of extra flying time. Perhaps FUK plus another city in western Japan. Or even OKA for those American military working there

obelau24 wrote:

I can’t imagine any country would allow cabotage, much less Japan. If I had to guess - and assuming this was based on fact - I’d think this would be to resurrect the SDJ-CTS link or maybe adding FUK back with a tag to CTS. I’ll believe it when I see it though.

Plenty of countries, mostly third world, allow cabotage. Every country in the EU, for example, allows cabatoge for EU airlines. Australia and New Zealand allow cabatoge for each other's airlines. The Bahamas also allows cabatoge for U.S. carriers, but it's been over a decade since an airline has used it.

But yes, I can't imagine that Japan will allow this.

I don't believe that it is far fetched to think that Japan will allow this. Both JA with AA and ANA with UA have been operating their JV's for some time. I believe both JA and HA are attempting to shore up their ability to compete in this increasingly competitive and growing market. The advent of Swoop and Air Asia have put pressure on fares and with ANA to soon introduce A-380 service, the JV sounds like a good defensive move to me.

WPvsMW wrote:

At this point, a crew rumor: step 2 after HA's JV is in place, HA and JL will seek cabotage within Japan on HA metal.

I don’t see the point. Japan has incredible amounts of domestic air and rail service as it is. This would literally just be to top up the passengers flying the first segment of a one stop route.

Crew rumor? Take it with a grain of salt

Cabotage within Japan by UA and NW was permitted after WWII, IIRC. I personally flew several times on Delta in the "oughts" from Narita to Nagoya Airfield (Komaki) before Centrair opened in 2005 (NRT-"old"NGO-SPN). Cabotage in Japan, with JL as an advocate, is possible.

WPvsMW wrote:

Cabotage within Japan by UA and NW was permitted after WWII, IIRC. I personally flew several times on Delta in the "oughts" from Narita to Nagoya Airfield (Komaki) before Centrair opened in 2005 (NRT-"old"NGO-SPN). Cabotage in Japan, with JL as an advocate, is possible.

But if that was approved back in POST-WWII era, then that mean they were approved when Japan have no sovereignty government and Japanese entities were not allowed to carry out aviation business. That would be very different from situation of modern Japan.

I repeat... " I personally flew several times on Delta in the "oughts" from Narita to Nagoya Airfield (Komaki) before Centrair opened in 2005 (NRT-"old"NGO-SPN). Cabotage in Japan, with JL as an advocate, is possible." I boarded at NRT and deplaned at Komaki.

The 2000-2005 period was certainly after Japan regained sovereignty.

WPvsMW wrote:

I repeat... " I personally flew several times on Delta in the "oughts" from Narita to Nagoya Airfield (Komaki) before Centrair opened in 2005 (NRT-"old"NGO-SPN). Cabotage in Japan, with JL as an advocate, is possible." I boarded at NRT and deplaned at Komaki.

NW operated NRT-NGO-SPN in the 2000s, but did not have local traffic rights on NRT-NGO — so, no cabotage.

DL withdrew from NGO when in ended PDX in 2001. No NGO-NRT segment existed from what I remember.

WPvsMW wrote:

I repeat... " I personally flew several times on Delta in the "oughts" from Narita to Nagoya Airfield (Komaki) before Centrair opened in 2005 (NRT-"old"NGO-SPN). Cabotage in Japan, with JL as an advocate, is possible." I boarded at NRT and deplaned at Komaki.

The 2000-2005 period was certainly after Japan regained sovereignty.

Were you a local passenger or did you connect at NRT from a flight originating in the US? You could do the latter but I can't recall that US carriers had pure cabotage rights permitting wholly domestic traffic on sectors within Japan. Okinawa was an exception until 1972 since it was under U.S. administration from the end of WWII until 1972.

NW had some flights that included the Tokyo-Osaka and Tokyo-Okinawa sectors in a 1982 timetable and they clearly indicate "No Local Traffic" on both. Passengers could only travel on those sectors if they were part of a trip to/from the U.S.

The flights were not linked to TPAC. I worked in Tokyo at the time. I remember boarding at NRT was always at a remote stand; equipment was a B757. Perhaps I should not have been sold a ticket.

WPvsMW wrote:

The flights were not linked to TPAC. I worked in Tokyo at the time. I remember boarding at NRT was always at a remote stand; equipment was a B757. Perhaps I should not have been sold a ticket.

Did you work for an airline? Airline employees can fly cabotage routes. My GF in the mid 90's flew GA LAX-HNL-LAX, she worked for Alpha Air in Tahoe as TW express & paid like $100 r/t.

I didn't work for any airline at that time.

WPvsMW wrote:

The flights were not linked to TPAC. I worked in Tokyo at the time. I remember boarding at NRT was always at a remote stand; equipment was a B757. Perhaps I should not have been sold a ticket.

It was NW; NW operated the 757 NRT-NGO for a period in the 2000s, but did not have local traffic rights. Regardless of your experience, there was no cabotage. Remember, Japan booted NW from OSA-SYD in the 1990s, unhappy with the ration of Japanese:USA connections...

WPvsMW wrote:

The flights were not linked to TPAC. I worked in Tokyo at the time. I remember boarding at NRT was always at a remote stand; equipment was a B757. Perhaps I should not have been sold a ticket.

According to forum threads back in 2005, "NW also serves Nagoya but as a transit Only from NRT to SPN. It connects NGO passengers to the entire NW network. Gives JL and NW a little competition."
viewtopic.php?t=332071
So you could board the flight at NRT if you were travelling to SPN (Or other places that they have flights from NGO at the time?)

It was a NW flight then ... I moved from DL to NW and back to DL FF programs, the shift back and forth in years past is blurred.
But yes, I boarded at NRT and deplaned at Komaki. I've never been to SPN, and I don't think I would have bought tix to SPN just to go to old NGO.

WPvsMW wrote:

At this point, a crew rumor: step 2 after HA's JV is in place, HA and JL will seek cabotage within Japan on HA metal.

Highly doubtful. What's more doubtful though, is your claim that this is a crew rumor.

Since the persons I talked with wore HA uniforms on an HA A332, I assumed they were HA crew.
You may want to ask some of your buddies who crew A332s for HA what they know about the "cabotage rumor".

WPvsMW wrote:

Since the persons I talked with wore HA uniforms on an HA A332, I assumed they were HA crew.
You may want to ask some of your buddies who crew A332s for HA what they know about the "cabotage rumor".

No disrespect to the crews, but I'd be shocked if the average crew member knows what cabotage is. Considering how little information there's been about the JV, I find it curious that something as specific, complicated and nuanced as cabotage would be crew rumor banter. Thus, my suspicions as to your entire claim to begin with.

azjubilee wrote:

No disrespect to the crews, but I'd be shocked if the average crew member knows what cabotage is. Considering how little information there's been about the JV, I find it curious that something as specific, complicated and nuanced as cabotage would be crew rumor banter. Thus, my suspicions as to your entire claim to begin with.

Can't speak for FA's, but ALPA has brought cabotage up in many discussion in both national and local (airline) meetings. Union money has gone to lobbyists to fight this in the US, so I would disagree with your assessment. Most front end aircrew know something about it.

The two A332 crewmembers I spoke with (independently) did not use the word "cabotage" (and I agree that they may not know the term), but described HA aircraft starting routes from secondary cities in Japan and stopping at gateway airports in Japan before continuing to Hawaii. Again, talk to some of your friends who have seniority at HA. Getting into details of Freedoms of the Air would have been futile. What was described/rumored was 8th FOTA (consecutive cabotage, the right to fly inside a foreign country, continuing to one's own country) rather than 9th FOTA (stand-alone cabotage).

RetiredWeasel wrote:

Can't speak for FA's, but ALPA has brought cabotage up in many discussion in both national and local (airline) meetings. Union money has gone to lobbyists to fight this in the US, so I would disagree with your assessment. Most front end aircrew know something about it.

I'm familiar with what ALPA has done, but I still think that the average crew member wouldn't be able to hold a meaningful discussion regarding HAL/JAL, their proposed JV and how it relates to cabotage. Of all things for crew to be discussing regarding the JV, cabotage is dubious.

BTW - no ALPA money has done to lobbying. That's funded by the PAC.

WPvsMW wrote:

Since the persons I talked with wore HA uniforms on an HA A332, I assumed they were HA crew.
You may want to ask some of your buddies who crew A332s for HA what they know about the "cabotage rumor".

FA's or pilots?

WPvsMW wrote:

The two crewmembers I spoke with (independently) did not use the word "cabotage" (and I agree that they wouldn't know the term), but described HA aircraft starting routes from secondary cities in Japan and stopping at gateway airports in Japan before continuing to Hawaii. Again, talk to some of your friends who have seniority at HA. Getting into details of Freedoms of the Air would have been futile. What was described/rumored was 8th FOTA (consecutive cabotage, the right to fly inside a foreign country, continuing to one's own country) rather than 9th FOTA (stand-alone cabotage).

Aaaaand the story changes. Just like recalling the details of your NRT-NGO trip on Delta, or was it NWA?

When HAL started SDJ (Sendai) service it was a tag to CTS. The routing was HNL-SDJ-CTS-HNL. No local traffic was carried between SDJ and CTS. Perhaps this is what inspired the conversation you apparently had?

One captain, one lead FA.

azjubilee wrote:

BTW - no ALPA money has done to lobbying. That's funded by the PAC.

Yes you're correct on Alpa Pac funding, but most of us that contributed, lumped the donations into that category of: helping to fight for our jobs (union stuff). And I still disagree with ya regarding our knowledge of cabotage.

On this topic, I can remember deadheading from NRT to NGO on our company's 757 (Red Tail). Now I can't remember if we had any local traffic rights on that route, but deadheaders were allowed to fly on it.

azjubilee wrote:

When HAL started SDJ (Sendai) service it was a tag to CTS. The routing was HNL-SDJ-CTS-HNL. No local traffic was carried between SDJ and CTS. Perhaps this is what inspired the conversation you apparently had?

No, the conversations were not about some discontinued route, the conversations were about where the HA/JL JV was rumored to be going.
Apologies for confusing a B757 redtail for a B757 wedgetail 15+ years ago.
If you have senior contacts at HA, broach the subject of where the HA/JL JV is going.
BTW, I think the adverb you want is "allegedly" rather than "apparently", which conversations I actually had.

RetiredWeasel wrote:

azjubilee wrote:

BTW - no ALPA money has done to lobbying. That's funded by the PAC.

Yes you're correct on Alpa Pac funding, but most of us that contributed, lumped the donations into that category of: helping to fight for our jobs (union stuff). And I still disagree with ya regarding our knowledge of cabotage.

On this topic, I can remember deadheading from NRT to NGO on our company's 757 (Red Tail). Now I can't remember if we had any local traffic rights on that route, but deadheaders were allowed to fly on it.

Point taken... I read "union money" as dues. Agreed however, the PAC supports the career. We'll have to disagree then on how adept one is on cabotage, despite the great attempts by ALPA to educate. Non rev/COBUS travel was allowed on those unique interport flights like NRT-KIX, NRT-NGO and even the short lived NRT-SGN service.

obelau24 wrote:

I can’t imagine any country would allow cabotage, much less Japan. If I had to guess - and assuming this was based on fact - I’d think this would be to resurrect the SDJ-CTS link or maybe adding FUK back with a tag to CTS. I’ll believe it when I see it though.

JV means sharing profits between JL and HA, so whether it is flow by HA metal is irrelevant.

A flight operated by JL surely can carry local traffic between two Japanese cities before the plane continuing to Hawaii as an international flight.
(while technically it is two different flights, domestic one and the one to Hawaii, the flight can be market as one single flight (same flight number) with a stop-over).

True, but metal makes a difference in 8th FOTA.