CPH-Flyer

That article is wrong in a couple of ways.

There are indeed 50 slots in total.

24 slots went to US routes, 12 for the US side 12 for the Japan side.

JAL and ANA only got half a slot each for India. Half meaning either the departure or arrival need to be in the night bank.

Which does in the end leave a slot on Haneda for both SK and Nh

US 24 6 JL 6 NH
China 8 2 NH 2 JL
Australia 4 1NH 1 JL
Russia 4 1 NH 1 JL
Scandinavia 2 1 NH
​​​​​Turkey 2 1NH
Italy 2 1 NH
Finland 2 1 JL
India 2 0.5 JL 0. NH

Total 50

The ones not going to JL/NH will go to the carriers of those countries.

GreatDane

Maybe SAS will see the writing on the wall and upgrade their C-class product.
Esp Wine offering has gone downhill lately: https://www.businesstraveller.com/bu...-lounge-menus/

CPH-Flyer

It is not just the wines that puts them at a disadvantage to ANA.... It is basically everything on the soft product.

FlyingMoose

And the service, ANA service is phenomenal compared to SK and unless SK would compete purely on pricing there is really no match.

CPH-Flyer

ANA took the HND ARN flight, so I guess SAS will go for CPH HND.

https://www.ana.co.jp/group/en/pr/201911/20191119.html

The question is only whether CPH-NRT will remain.

Tango Alpha

Very unlikely. I don't know about demand, but the fleet will not grow apart from the 3 A321LR.

CPH-Flyer

True. Though looking at flights they are usually packed, and at least starting from Japan not cheaply priced.

SK AAR

I would expect CPH-NRT to be one of the most profitable SK longhaul routes (if not the most profitable).

However, NH HND-ARN with good connections to other destinations in the Nordics - wauw! ^

GUWonder

I expect CPH-NRT to be history in rather short order when there is a CPH-HND service in the picture.

For purposes of mileage ticket games, I prefer CPH-HND in the years ahead.

CPH-Flyer

I think so too, there is not much of connectivity left that could make NRT attractive. Maybe some Asian destinations and Auckland with Air NZ. Though for the latter the timings give a too long layover to NZ and can't do same day connection from NZ.

AY is moving one of their daily departures from NRT to HND and JAL is stopping NRT HEL completely OK favour of HND HEL. So it is not like the market will be swamped with extra capacity

nacho

Dang, ANA should be flying into CPH instead - but as long as they are flying into either ARN/CPH I'm happy.

What's wrong with NRT? It's a hub and not everyone flying into NRT want to go to Tokyo, also there are domestic flights that fly into NRT.

CPH-Flyer

There is nothing wrong with Narita per se. In many ways it is probably the nicer airport experience of the two.

However, the transport in to central Tokyo is where Narita gets its negative publicity. People tend to compare the 1.5 to 2 hour bus ride from Narita to their hotel with the 20 minute monorail ride to Hamamatsucho Station. Which is not a completely fair comparison. But fact is that Haneda is 15 to 20 km from most destinations in central Tokyo, and Narita is 65 to 70km. Haneda you can get a taxi for a survivable fare, Narita is around 30K yen. For me with train or bus, I can get to Narita in 1h 15m and Haneda in 45m so the difference is not big, but it will depend greatly on your exact location in central Tokyo.

As far as hub goes, the banks in Narita are very much built around connecting US traffic to South East Asia, and are not well suited for the timing of the European flights. There are (on JAL and ANA each) two flights a day to places like Sapporo, Fukuoka, and Osaka, where Haneda has each of those hourly by each airline. If you want to split your ticket in two there is a decent sized low cost carrier domestic network from Narita by now.

Haneda's International terminal is already heavily crowded, adding 50 flights a day is not going to help there. Especially arrival immigration can have bad lines for foreigners. But also security check and general terminal space is getting stretched at times. Not to speak of the crowded zoos that are the ANA lounges.

Though ANA is opening two departure only international gates in T2, all arrivals will be in the current international terminal as they will not add arrival immigration and customs facilities. The separated terminal layout gives a need for rather long MCT to and from domestic flights, and the confusion of ANA having international flights from two terminals should make for an interesting period.

So, the picture is not quite as simple as all that. But speak to most people outside Japan flying to Japan, Haneda is the holy grail of Japanese airports. Due to departure costs, a flight to or from Haneda is 10K yen more than the equivalent Narita flight, so 20K for a return. Unless the airline eats that, which I highly doubt.

GUWonder

US service to Japan has been slated to increasingly gravitate toward HND and away from NRT. The taxi cost for using NRT is legendary while taxi cost to use HND really is not. But that isn’t why the US to Tokyo services have been shifting toward HND and away from NRT. It seems that the legacy majors from the wealthier OECD countries tend to expect to find HND better for their corporate financial interests than NRT.

CPH-Flyer

I took a taxi home from Haneda the day before yesterday, the cost was 65 euro, not cheap for a 16km ride. Of course Narita does come in around 4 times that amount.

I have many colleagues that due to where they live see Haneda as a hassle to get to, and Narita as the easy one. Even people living in the Yokohama direction. But for the hotels that business travellers mainly use, there is no doubt that the best Narita can do is being "not that much more time to get to", there is no point at which Narita can be the quickest. And unless you know the tricks of the transport system very well, and really know how to chose your routes, there is a risk that Narita will always be much longer in transport than Haneda. So people are probably willing to pay a bit extra to fly in to Haneda.

To be honest, I really don't mind which of the airports I fly from. This year I have flown far more from Narita than from Haneda, but I can see some of my regular destinations moving to Haneda, so I guess next year will be more Haneda.

Lauda 777

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't there a rule that says if you want to fly to Haneda you need to have a route to Narita as well, not necessarily from the same airport (eg CPH).