TokyoTomo Travel Guide

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) announced that scheduled international flights are set to start operating from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on October 31 this year in time for the beginning of winter timetable period. The new runway D, Haneda’s fourth runway, is also scheduled to become operational on October 21. Slated on the same day for new services are a new international passenger terminal building, a new apron and new airport stations of Tokyo Monorail and KEIKYU, Keihin Electric Express.

Meanwhile, Japanese airlines have drawn up new international routes operating out of Haneda. Also, for the Japan/U.S. routes, the distribution of four take-off and landing slots per day for U.S. airlines have been announced. New flight plans by foreign carriers should follow in due course.

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.

Yoshio Taguchi, Deputy Director of International Air Transport Division, Civil Aviation Bureau of MLIT addressed the recent JATA Management Forum 2010 about its strategy for the internationalization of Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and explained that the international flights departing from Haneda after October “will be evenly distributed to serve nearly all major international cities.” The number of daily international departure and arrival slots available after the airport’s further expansion is expected to total 40 during the day and another 40 during the late evening and early morning. The day time slots will see 24 flights assigned to serve Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the late evening and early morning slots have been allocated to 36 flights serving 11 countries in Asia, North America and Europe. The respective take-off and landing slots are allocated half/half between Japan and its counterparts. Except for some destinations, airlines are generally eager to operate the routes from Haneda, said Taguchi.

Out of the departure and arrival slots available during the day, Korea has been allocated daily 12 slots and Hong Kong and Taiwan have been allocated daily four slots and eight slots respectively. As far as the remaining 16 slots are concerned, Taguchi said that International Air Transport Division of Civil Aviation Bureau is expected to grant all these 16 slots to China during the aviation talks between the two countries. The actual increase of the slots is daily 24 since 16 slots have been used up for the currently operated scheduled charter flights. Taguchi continued, “ A majority of the remaining 24 day time take-off and landing slots will be most probably allocated to flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, Busan, Hong Kong and Taiwan’s Songshan,” expecting these destinations from Haneda to enhance the network of short-haul Asian business shuttle flights.

Meanwhile, the late evening and early morning slots have been agreed to be assigned to four flights to Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore respectively, two flights each to Malaysia and Thailand, eight flights to USA, two flights to Canada, four flights to Germany and two flights respectively to Netherland, France and UK. “Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Hong Kong are to be definitely served from Haneda,” said Taguchi, adding, ”Although European airlines have not released any definite flight schedules, Japanese carriers are said to be considering starting services to Frankfurt, London and Paris which are the respective hubs of their partnership airlines.” Five US carriers declared their wish to inaugurate the US routes from Haneda Airport, but US government reportedly said that it intends to allocate some of the take-off and landing slots to Hawaii and Guam. The remaining four departure and arrival slots, like the day time slots, will be reserved for China and dealt with during the negotiations with China.

Asked to comment on a probability of low cost carriers (LCCs) operating from Haneda, Taguchi of International Air Transport Division, CAB, said, “We have no reason to turn down their requests, but we presume that their flag carriers will, under the general circumstances, operate the Haneda route since its landing fee will be quite expensive for LCCs (low cost carriers). Having said that, he indicated a possibility that LCCs may, nevertheless, start services taking advantage of the late evening and early morning take-off and landing slots, during which the preferred slots may be comparatively easy for the low cost carriers to secure to operate scheduled flights or charter flights.

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.