Tokyo Haneda Slots Sought by Five US Airlines

[PhilDernerJr]

:arrow: Tokyo Haneda Slots Sought by Five US Airlines

Five airlines in the United States have applied for slots at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, an airfield looking to expand its international flight presence. We give you a break-down who requested what and how they plan to utilize the emerging Japanese gateway.

[T-Bird76]

American is also requesting daily service from LAX.

[Iberia A340-600]

Singapore and Air France will be the first non-Japanese airlines to start flying from HND.

[JetBlueAirwaysFan]

Why isn't DL proposing ATL-HND service? That's a first.

[bonanzabucks]

Haneda is the biggest airport in Japan. It has more terminal capacity than Narita and it has three runways (soon four), which could be used simultaneously. Narita has just two runways and one of them can’t be used for take-offs or landings for bigger planes because it’s too small. The thing is that the Japanese are very conservative when it comes to environmental regulations and HND is capped at around 285,000 movements a year for this reason. This is why HND is more or less restricted to domestic flights or flights to Taiwan (due to political reasons) and some charters to northern Asian cities like Beijing and Seoul. The latter two have been very recent additions.

With the new runway and a new terminal, the Japanese are supposedly raising the cap to 407,000 movements a year and they promised some of these new slots could go to international flights. Given HND’s much closer proximity to Tokyo compared to NRT, it’s no surprise everyone is trying to join the party.