Delta had a privileged position at Tokyo Narita airport, operating a hub they inherited by acquiring Northwest Airlines. Northwest and Pan Am had the right to fly beyond Tokyo to other destinations in Asia. (The Pan Am rights now belong to United.)
However they became, effectively, the number three U.S. airline in Tokyo because:
- United partnered with Japanese carrier ANA in a joint venture
- American partnered with Japan Airlines in a joint venture
Delta, then, formed a joint venture (and even acquired a stake in) Korean Air and sees Seoul-Incheon now as its connecting hub to Asia.
They’ve wanted to be able to move their entire Tokyo operation to the close-in Haneda airport. That’s because they see Tokyo now as a destination rather than a connecting point. They’ve argued to the DOT in the past that if they don’t get enough slots at Haneda to run their own set of flights, that no U.S. airline should get to fly to Haneda. It was an aggressive position, but it largely worked.
The U.S. government had 12 additional Haneda routes to hand out and basically gave Delta everything it wanted. In fact, instead of arguing they were assigning these rights based on consumer welfare which is the usual approach.
Normally airlines play a bit of kabuki and argue that additional route authorities will mean additional flights. It was clear to everyone including the Department of Transportation that giving Delta the most Haneda slots would mean shifting their flights from Narita to Haneda. They did this because Delta was less competitive than the joint ventures United and American have at Tokyo — so as a subsidy to Delta.
The authorities Delta received were to fly to Tokyo Haneda from Seattle; Detroit; Atlanta; Portland; and Honolulu in addition to the Los Angeles and Minneapolis authorities they already have.
Able to fly to Haneda from 7 U.S. cities, Delta has decided to abandon Tokyo Narita service entirely. Tokyo becomes a destination and no longer a connecting point, as they’re:
- Dropping Tokyo – Singapore September 22
- Moving Tokyo – Manila to Seoul – Manila in March
They’ll abandon Narita entirely in late spring 2020.
Tokyo Narita is in Narita and Not Tokyo
The Department of Transportation gave a huge gift to Delta, allowing them to become the largest U.S. airline at the desirable close-in Tokyo airport, and assigning route authorities that wouldn’t even increase capacity in the U.S. – Japan market, contravening past practice believing that more flights are better for consumers. Delta really should stop arguing that governments help other airlines and at least be honest about their ‘subsidies for me but not for thee’ position.
Dumb move in the long run to abandon a international hub. Korean Air isn’t an airline I would fly over ANA or JAL to connect in Asia. DL is also losing out in China too with AA and taking away one of their former (and better) Skyteam partners and Oneworld’s growing alliance in SE Asia (Qantas, Cathy Pacific/Dragon, China Eastern, JAL, etc. . )
I like Delta but they should just give up flying across the Pacific.
@Jean
That’s a really silly argument. They have a robust Pacific network, certainly much more so than American does.
@sun – but you would not necessarily choose SkyTeam with limited connections from Narita either. No matter where DL, UA, or AA hubs are located we’ll all base travel on airline loyalty and onward connections. Anyone DL/SkyTeam reliant would choose SkyTeam no matter where the hub is located.
@gary – why the ‘subsidy’ hate towards DL? Are you seriously saying that granting route authorities counts as subsidies, and that DL leaving one airport for another constitutes a subsidy? It would seem that if DL claims they’d leave Narita if they got Haneda slots and then DIDN’T leave I’d question DOTs choices. But since DL chose to leave Narita completely I have no problem with it. And to say that DL is not growing TPAC capacity in the change doesn’t mean anything, if anything it would seem that UA and AA can now grow capacity to Narita.
Your arguments are weak on this one.
Does DL really need 7 flights to HND, a city with no local partner or meaningful feed? Yes it’s a big market, but so are HKG and SIN, cities not served at all. Ed Bastian said in a previous article that NRT was a challenge with no alliance partner to provide feed. Not sure how the move to HND changes that.
@tom – While it doesn’t change feed it does change the attempt to be direct point to point travel vs hub traffic
This is beyond stupid.
Delta no longer flies to Singapore, no longer flies to Hong Kong, and no longer flies to Taiwan. Didn’t Osaka get dropped too? There were a bunch of other intra-Asia routes; Bangkok, Guam, Palau, Saipan, etc.
Essentially, Delta is GIVING UP on Asia and getting any local business. Will Haneda even have a Sky Club? Right now, it doesn’t. Delta isn’t even resuming New York-Tokyo from Haneda. I flew New York LGA to DTW the other morning. Half the flight were Japanese and Korean passengers connecting to the NRT flight in Detroit.
This is just STUPID.
Delta must be getting a lot of subsidies to keep flying to Manila.
It’s also funny how we don’t hear much about Delta and China Eastern these days. Guess Delta figures Trump administration isn’t too keen on them being in bed with a communist airline.
I guess also Delta realized its Delta One product can’t compete against United’s Polaris business-class and the premium lounges, let alone Singapore Airlines.
We will miss connecting in NRT and then on to Singapore on Delta metal on our trips to SE Asia.
This fall on nextl trip, we have bought tickets for ATL-PVG-BKK-ICN-ATL. ATL-PVG on Delta and PVG-BKK on China Eastern. BKK-ICN and ICN-ATL on Korean Air. These are all Delta One and business class on their partners.
I talked to the Delta One flight attendants on SIN-NRT in May. To put it mildly, they were not happy about the imminent abandonment of the SIN-NRT flights.
We have enough UR and MR points combined to fly RT on Singapore Airlines in 2020 so we will probably do that if we find award availability in their business class cabin.
Some of the nicest flights I ever took on Delta were NRT-SIN-NRT, with a seemingly non-US crews that provided the best service I’ve ever had on an American carrier. Always filled 747s between JFK-NRT with easy connections all over Southeast Asia.
Its incredible the sorts of unintended consequences U.S. government air transport policy has caused by eliminating these sorts of services and instead allowing U.S. carriers to make money by entering into JVs and NOT providing services. Pathetic.
@David-in-Florida: I am sure that Delta’s flight crew aren’t happy because the very senior flight attendants that could get trips to Singapore often would spend a week on Delta’s dime in Asia flying intra-Asia. As those intra-Asia routes disappeared so did the extended layovers and free sightseeing on Delta’s dime. Narita-Palau was the best. Those Delta flight attendants got to spend a week in Palau on Delta’s dime!
@Gary I read you as saying that Delta is abandoning NRT-SIN (a route I fly regularly) to be replaced by HND-SIN. Is that indeed the fact, or wishful reading on my part?
@Gary. so when flying DL from the US to HND, it’s a dead end? Is DL arranging for any code shares out of HND to destinations beyond? Is there enough volume to support all these flight to HND as a dead end flight?
@Michael-in-SIngapore Delta will not be flying HND-SIN sadly
Why wouldn’t Delta fly ICN-SIN similar to their ICN-MNL flights?
The NRT-SIN flights that I was on last year and this year looked full in the Delta One area. Not sure about the lower class areas but there were many people boarding.
Would anyone like to place a bet as to what might happen to my solo vacay award ticket in October from ATL to SIN, with connections both ways in NRT? Should I panic yet?
Next time there are Haneda route applications, Delta should not be granted any unless they bring back a little Narita service. Delta shortchanged America by just moving service, not adding service to Japan.
Joan fro Dixie
You ought to start planning on something thru ICN on Korean Air. I had a Sept. 10 flight NRT-SIN changed to just that. Worse still I was using a Delta GU. Korean Air won’t upgrade a non Y fare. In in coach.
Or you could fly atl-pvg-sin with the first segment on Delta and the second on China Eastern.
In October we are going tpa-atl-pvg-bkk with the return bkk-icn-atl-tpa. These were the lowest cost business class flights I could find on Delta’s website. This was one of the lower cost options using Skyteam flights looking on google flights.