AA dropping JFK-HND, can UA get the HND slot?
 

AA is going to cancel JFK-HND.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayi...ights/2994605/

The right for the slot will be returned.

Last year when DL dropped HND-DTW, four airlines competed for the slot. DL SEA, UA SFO, AA LAX, HA KOA. DL won it again then. This year it looks like AA is not interested in LAX-HND, some reports in Japan say. It is natural as AA blames the time restriction of current HND-US operations.

Can UA get the slot this time?

I hope UA will apply since it has stronger traffic to/through Japan than AA.
UA can apply to replace the AA slots with SFO-HND and perhaps EWR-HND.

USA-HND routes from anywhere other than Hawaii and possibly west coast are futile given the current time-slot restrictions.

Maybe yes. Maybe no.

1. For business travelers to Tokyo, in many cases the timing to HND is better as a) it allows a full day in the U.S. before departure, and b) allows you to go straight to hotel/home and bed rather than having to try to stay up and try to adjust to Japan times.

2. AA was particularly hampered was because their only partner connections out of HND was JL to BKK and SIN and both of these have very late departures 1:30am and 1:00am

3. UA has better connections: NH and TG to BKK/ NH and SQ to SIN.

4. IMHO the late evening arrival is less of a problem than the early morning departure. Who wants to get up at 3:30 or 4:00am to catch a flight. Scheduling a late evening departure of HND is a much better solution.

I would absolutely love HNL-HND.

The SQ fights really don't count. Unless your purely looking for routes / flights where you earn max miles (not the common traveller), UA has no code shares or any kind of marketing agreement with SQ. Unless you keep up with all the *A partners (which most of US do, but most of the general public DON't, you would never know SQ has anything at all to do with UA. For me its just as easy to buy a ticket with airlines from 2 or even 3 alliances and the best connections then sticking with *A just for the sake of an all *A ticket.

I basically agree. The exceptions I would note are

1. Award travel (and this is not insignificant because UA actually books revenue on award tickets at relatively high CPM prices), and

2. NH has pretty good code shares going both ways so you can book UA<>TG metal on a NH ticket.

The NH HND-LAX flight is timed great for O&D pax. You get a full day in Tokyo (work, etc) then get into LAX with a few hours to spare before bed time.

If I want to maximize my trip to the US, this is timed so I Don't have to choose between taking a half day off work to leave on Friday from NRT or waste half a day in Japan on Saturday. I'd absolutely love to see a UA HND-SFO leaving here at midnight, avoids the messed up elite baggage allowances caused if you start on the NH codeshare. For those who aren't staying in SFO, it would get in there just in time for the early red eye flights east still giving you at least 1/2 day extra on the US side.

Now, for returning to Japan I find the opposite is true and the NRT flights time better, leaving the US in the morning but just late enough to get a morning connection from pretty much anywhere on the UA network and getting into Narita in time to get you home in central Tokyo by mid-evening.

I certainly hope UA applies for this spot and I think they knew this was coming. I would like to see UA apply for a GUM-HND route. That would be a packed flight whether using a 777 or 738.

The main challenge in winning a slot for flights from GUM is that the way the agreement between Japan and US reads. A GUM flight will make money and be sustainable but I think UA really wants the SFO route which could be profitable and successful.

If the purpose is just to connect, then why bother going to HND when you can connect out the wazoo at Narita ?. I thought the benefit of flying HND is the close"r" proximity to Tokyo. Maybe I am missing something, but I would have thought the connections wouldn't be a big part of it

For some better timing.

I for one would really like this. Although I'm sure the lounge options are poor compared to NRT, but the flexibility for trips to Tokyo would be a huge plus.

I hope United gets a go at this route.

Exactly! The assumption everyone made when Haneda was re-opened to long-haul international flights was that business travelers headed to/from Tokyo would fill these planes. High-fare O&D passengers would vastly prefer HND over NRT. Turns out that isn't the case. There just aren't enough Tokyo business travelers who are willing to pay high fares given the restrictive slot timings.

Maybe when the daytime slots are allocated (there are some on the way next spring), airlines will be able to fill planes with Tokyo O&D.

I assume this slot will be re-allocated ala the Delta proceeding when it asked to move the DTW slot to SEA. Everyone will have a chance to acquire it.

The biggest problem w/ the HND route was the flight back to JFK was so early, it was a $70 taxi as public transportation wasn't open yet and as someone else mentioned who wants to get up at 3am to get to the airport.

From the West Coast it may have worked better, SFO-HND on JL times were better, left SFO late afternoon and return from HND was late at night.