Originally Posted by
FWAAA
That's incorrect.
SEA-HND failed for DL because SEA is a seasonal market with very limited Tokyo O&D. LAX, the USA market with the largest Tokyo O&D, has many multiples of local traffic to/from Tokyo compared to SEA. That's why DL failed at SEA-HND. Just not enough O&D. Not unlike US' failure at PHL-TLV. Not enough high-fare paying O&D.
If your incorrect conclusion above were accurate, then how does Delta make its LAX-HND flight work? DL's slots for its LAX-HND flight are not terribly different from the ones AA has published for its LAX-HND flight.
I think a slightly better way to put it is that, with the crappy slot times, only the very best west coast-TYO markets (LAX and SFO) work, and the slots don't work at all even for very strong east coast-TYO markets (like NYC). With better slot times, markets like SEA, DTW, DFW, etc (ie any market that currently supports NRT service, and perhaps a few more) could probably work.
And of course these times are pretty good for Hawaii service, which is why HNL-HND works just fine and why HA thinks that KOA-HND would work even though there's no current KOA-NRT service (ie HA has reason to think that KOA is in the "perhaps a few more" category).