BrianV

I'd welcome this, I take 169 and 170 often. About half the time I connect to NGO, and I'd much rather connect to NGO via HND anyways. I find inter-Japan flights to be better out of HND, so for those connecting within Japan, this is an improvement.

I'm flying AUS-NGO later this month, and for the first time ever, I was unable to get a cost-effective flight through NRT (majority of the time I take 169). I was able to get AUS-DFW-PVG-NGO for half the price of AUS-DFW-NRT-NGO. For my return, the two daily NGO-NRT JL flights were sold out. I'll take shinkansen from Nagoya to Tokyo Station then Narita Express to catch NRT-LAX-AUS (this flight had low load). In my experience the two NRT-NGO flights are always expensive and many times full (they use 787 and 777-300 on some of those flights).

So I would generally welcome this change. It is a major bonus for those actually heading to Tokyo, it's an improvement in Japan-domestic connections and it relies on better located airports in OW for other Asian connections. When I flew to SIN, I went through HKG rather than NRT. That NRT-SIN route is a long way on non-AA metal, so for non-Japan connections, I'd prefer to get further into Asia than NRT.

Finally, since this is just LAX based, AA probably feels there is so much overall Asian competition out of TBIT that it should focus on Japan market for those flights. Out of DFW and ORD, NRT assuredly stays around.