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Delta Wants DOT to Take Haneda Slots Away From AA

Delta and American continue to fight for flight rights to and from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.

Delta Air Lines filed a motion with the Department of Transportation (DOT) October 1 asking the government to revoke American Airlines backup authority to service flights to and from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Tokyo Haneda Airport (HND).

According to Delta’s filing, American promised to inaugurate LAX-HND service within 60 days of receiving backup authority, which the DOT issued June 15.

“Despite being on notice since June 17, 2015 that the slots at issue would be available on October 1, American has failed to file any schedules or make available for sale any Los Angeles-Haneda flights,” the filing states. “American apparently has no intention of inaugurating the service as promised. Accordingly, the slots should be removed from American, returned to the unallocated pool, and made available to other interested carriers.”

In June, DOT finalized its tentative selection of American’s LAX-HND proposal as a backup to Delta’s award. American’s authority would become effective if Delta failed to meet DOT requirements for serving the Seattle market.

Delta returned slots it held for Seattle-Haneda service because it could not comply with the DOT’s operating terms and conditions.

“American’s backup award … was expressly conditioned on its ability to meet the Department’s accelerated 60-day startup condition,” Delta’s filing said. “Given the strict conditions imposed on Delta, it would be unfair, arbitrary and capricious to allow American to violate the terms of its backup award and retain slots for Los Angeles-Haneda service that it has no intention of operating within the next 60 days.”

Delta is asking the DOT to remove the slots from American and to return them to the unallocated pool and available to other carriers.

See the full filing here.

[Photo: Delta Air Lines]

 

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sdsearch October 7, 2015

This story is out date. American has already explained that the reason they could not start the flights is because there has been no way yet to get any HND slots since the time they got the authority. (No new HND slots have been made available to ANY airline during this time, so no other airline that didn't already have HND slots could have done better than American.) And it was not American's duty to notify Delta of this, only to notify DOT of this. (And if was not DOT's duty to notify Delta of this, either!)