Sale of routes to UA was announced in early 1985, with actual transfer completed in Feb/March 1996. Hold up was the Japanese gov't, which wanted to extract some concessions in order to allow UA to be switched in for PA. Also, UA was required to give up its SEA-NRT route (it was flying this at the time). CO picked it up, then sold it to AA, which abandoned it 1+ years ago (the result of UA re-entering the market). The usual int'l craziness.