Duke787

Per @airlineroute the Japanese authorities have awarded the slots as follows.

ANA: 3 daytime, 1 nighttime
JL: 2 daytime

Mountain Explorer

No, it's not! If you want an analogy: it's like parents saying you can have a puppy, but you have to feed and walk it everyday! And the kid replying, that's a lot of responsibility, I think I'll pass. I'll just play with the neighbor's puppy instead

FireEmblemPride

Japanese news sites also saying that NH is looking to start ORD and NY service (likely JFK), as I suspected. That said, with this revelation, whether UA will get EWR seems to rest on what happens with JL, not necessarily NH.

JL ends up with the same amount of slots they began with, so the question is what they decide to fly. My bet is on SFO staying and JFK replacing HNL. I can't see JL putting the flagship JL01/02 back to NRT as it would be a very large step back in terms of prestige, and JFK is higher yielding than HNL. Since JL operates two NRT-JFK flights, not having one moved to HND would hurt the viability of both flights (NH also operates this 2x/day so they'll still have NRT-JFK in the network).

If it turns out as I predict (JL and NH doing JFK), then there's no way UA gets EWR. If JL decides not to do JFK, then there's a chance the DOT could award UA EWR on the basis of market size.

Fanjet

Actually, for your analogy to work, the parents would have already given their kid the puppy. @:-)

If Delta had their way, they would still be holding on to their SEA-HND route authority and only operating it a few months out of the year. But the DOT set the demands in order for Delta to continue keeping it. Delta did not volunteer to surrender the authority on their own initiative.

Fanjet

There is no way either carrier would waste a daytime slot pair on their HNL-HND service. My prediction for JAL is SFO (as their SFO-HND flight is the only one to Tokyo from there). And JFK (which is probably why AA did not request JFK-HND). As for ANA, I think ORD/IAH/JFK or IAD would be their choices. There is an argument for leaving LAX-HND on the nighttime service (late night LAX departure/early morning HND arrival). As it serves a certain preference for some business travelers. And having their base of operations at HND makes for better utilization of the aircraft than for a U.S. carrier doing the same service. Of course, this would mean both carriers switching over their HNL service to NRT.

dc9flyernwa

All the HND routes were applied for using the 777.

Duke787

From a DL standpoint this might actually help there case since JL ended up with 2 daytime instead of just 1.

There's a pathway forward now where *A has 4 and everyone else gets 3 which doesn't seem that far fetched if DOT wants equity.

UA gets 1 plus NH's 3 daytime for 4
AA 1 plus JL's 2 for 3
And Delta gets 3

And then NH and HA get the nighttime

Longboater

Even for the sake of equity, I doubt DL gets all three slots they've applied for. With their behaviour over this mess, they are certainly not worthy of receiving all three. With DOT's ruling with SEA-HND, DL should be fortunate to receive two daytime slots. I think the announcement makes DFW-HND more likely and pretty much kills UA's chance of EWR-HND. DL will probably end up with ATL/LAX-HND. And of course, DL will throw a fit over not being awarded MSP-HND and promptly cancel MSP/PDX-NRT, just as they promised over this mess.

mnbp

DOT cares about the travelling public, not individual carriers. It seems clear that the travelling public would be better served by three viable carriers / joint venture partnerships serving HND vs two. For this reason the DL case for three slot pairs seems the only way DOT could balance the US48-HND market. If DOT doesn't award DL three slots, wouldn't that leave only two carriers / partnerships serving the vast majority of the US48-HND market? What would that do to prices? That would be DOTs main concern I believe.

ashill

It is possible, but I disagree that NH and even JL doing NYC precludes UA getting EWR because I'm not convinced that the DOT cares directly about the JL- and ANA-operated flights in considering the geographic distribution of flights in these proceedings. They didn't mention the JL and NH routes in the 2010 allocation of the initial four HND slots. Now that is a very imperfect analogy, since the DOT explicitly did not prejudge the outcome of the then-pending antitrust immunity applications by AA/JL and CO/UA/NH, but I still think it's illustrative. I think that the DOT will want a US-carrier-operated flight to NYC. They'll certainly consider the joint ventures in terms of overall capacity (although DL's case there isn't as strong as DL makes it out to be; as AA notes, DL is larger in USA-TYO than AA and JL combined).

Even so, DL won two routes in that proceeding not because of any stated desire on the part of the DOT to give them more routes but for the specifics of their two routes: They won LAX because they promised to use a 747, which is much bigger than the 772 AA was going to use (but of course kept the route when they promptly downsized to a plane smaller than AA's 772). They won DTW because it was the only interior eastern hub proposed, and the DOT wanted an interior eastern hub to provide 1-stop service to HND for most of the eastern and central US.

In 2010, the DOT only considered alliances/avoiding concentration as a tiebreaker in deciding between CO's EWR and AA's JFK proposals. It was not a factor they said they considered in giving DL two slot pairs in 2010.

ashill

It depends whether they think primarily balancing the US48-HND or the US48-TYO market is most important for the traveling public. If they care about the US48-TYO market, DL is significantly larger than AA+JL and not much smaller than UA+NH.

Irrespective, I think the DOT will care more about geographic distribution of the flights operated by US airlines (which means I don't predict that both AA and DL will get/keep LAX), and perhaps DL's history of underutilizing and obstructing the utility of HND for the traveling public, than giving special consideration to DL to maximize their HND slots.

MSPeconomist

Beyond NH obviously being *A and JL oneworld, what are these carriers' relationships to UA and AA? JV? Codeshare arrangements? Or are they just partners through being members of the same alliances?

I'm thinking that having some TPAC flights into HND from the NYC and WAS areas available as a codeshare using a USA carrier's flight number would be a big advantage to government travelers, who otherwise would be required to take a connection by the Fly America act.

Of course, there's also the argument that Americans who want to fly USA airlines should be able to do so conveniently.

mAAine_flyer

Not relevant in this case. The Fly America Act allows for travel on foreign air carriers (i.e., no code-share required) belonging to nations which have signed Open Skies agreements with the US (i.e., the EU, Switzerland, Australia and Japan).

jrkmsp

JL and AA have an ATI/JV, UA and NH also have an ATI/JV. Both are fully inclusive of all trans-Pacific flights (i.e. US-China, but not US-Australia.) In other words, per DOT decision, an NH flight is considered a UA flight and a UA flight is considered an NH flight. That's the letter of the JV rules.

sbm12

There are other Open Skies agreements which exist but do not qualify for the exemption; it is not only about the Open Skies agreement.