Round 2 of AA's fight: Haneda slots

The fight for Japanese traffic in the US is far from over. Round 1 has just ended with American Airlines taking home the grand prize of Japan Airlines' commitment. Round 2 of this fight has already begun and is way more vigorous than the first round. This time around, the airlines are fighting for 4 pairs of slots at Haneda. AA's opponents are Delta, United, Continental and Hawaiian Airlines.

Below are the break down for what the five airlines propose for
American Airlines (Press Release)
1 daily JFK-HND
- Operated with 247-seat (16F 37C 194Y) 777-200ER's
- ex-JFK flight departs at 19:20 and arrives HND at 22:20 the next day
- ex-HND flight departs at 07:00 and arrives JFK at 06:50 on the same day

1 daily LAX-HND
- Operated with 247-seat (16F 37C 194Y) 777-200ER's
- ex-LAX flight departs at 18:45 and arrives HND at 22:05 the next day
- ex-HND flight departs at 00:05 and arrives LAX at 18:10 on the previous day

United Airlines (Press Release)
1 daily SFO-HND
- Operated with 777-200ER's

Continental Airlines (Press Release)
1 daily GUM-HND
- Operated with 767-400ER by Continental Micronesia

1 daily EWR-HND
- Operated with 777-200ER

Delta Air Lines (Press release, proposed schedules witih flight numbers)
1 daily SEA-HND
- Operated with Airbus 330-300

1 daily DTW-HND
- Operated with 747-400

1 daily LAX-HND
- Operated with 747-400

1 daily HNL-HND
- Operated with 747-400

Hawaiian Ailrines (Press Release)
2 daily HNL-HND
- Operated with 264-seat 767-300ER and 294-seat Airbus 330-200
- Both ex-HNL flights departs at around 18:45 and arrives HND at around 20:00 the next day.
- Both ex-HND flights departs shortly before midnight and arrive HNL at around noon on the same day

Airlineroute blog has all of the proposed schedules up.

So only 4 of these will be granted. Delta argues that they are the only one without a partner in Tokyo and therefore granting them the slots will be in the best interests of the public to increase compeition at Haneda. But how about HA? They don't have a partner at HND either. Even though DL's flights are from some big hubs, their connections at HND is non-existent! Are there enough passengers flying to Tokyo to support ALL 4 flights?

Looks like all airlines are kind of playing safe here. None of that are routes not currently served by any airlines at NRT. Personally, I would want AA to lose on LAX route unless JAL is going to start its own LAX-HND :P So AA stays out of my way LOL.

IMHO the best strategy for JAL/AA depends on which airlines are awarded the slots. There are two routes they can go for.

First strategy is to play nice. JAL and ANA's HND routes should compliment its partners and rival for the sack of Japan and fight together to get back the traffic lost to ICN. So if UA gets SFO, DL gets SEA, AA gets JFK and HA gets HNL, then JL should starts LAX, ORD, DFW, BOS, and some European routes etc.

Second strategy is to be mean. If UA and CO gets SFO and GUM and ANA operates LAX, JFK, ORD. Then JAL should starts HND-SFO and HND-GUM. I believe most Japanese would prefer flying on a Japanese carrier and for that reason, they should go after the routes which are operated by the US carriers. Evil isn't it? (My other name is EvilPak :P)

No matter which one JAL ends up doing, they need slots at Haneda!!! Unfortunately currently they don't make such a good case to get more slots at HND. Hopefully we will find out soon about the slot allocation for Japanese carriers.