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American Airlines Celebrates Tokyo-Chicago 10th Anniversary, In talks with British Airways and Continental, Confirms American
Mid-May 2008
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Tokyo-Chicago service,
Theo Panagiotoulias, Vice President Asia & the Pacific, American
Airlines met Travel Vision for an interview on May 2, during which he
mentioned, "The 10th anniversary constitutes a success," indicating
that the airline's hub to hub strategy has been effectively
developing.
Chicago's O'Hare airport is an international hub for American
Airlines with the excellent network within Mid West, while Tokyo's
Narita is a hub airport for Japan Airlines which is American's
partner airline and also a member of oneworld. JAL provides enhanced
network within Japan and in Asia. The airline will continue to
strengthen a tie-up with JAL and at the same time appeal to the
user-friendliness at Chicago Airport.
Asked to comment on the current market demand, he said,
"Globally, we see signs of decelerating economy, but mostly it's
within the financial sector. Japanese companies have long been in Mid
West and in Latin America as well. Chicago serves also a convenient
gateway for leisure travelers to Canada." The airline attracts both
business and leisure traffic with a fine-tuned traffic mix, he
stressed.
American Airlines launched the Narita/ Chicago route on May 2,
1998 with a 232-seater MD-11 and in September, 2000 started daily
operation with a Boeing B777. Celebrating the 10th anniversary, the
airline has started to sell special fares online from May 2 to June
15.
Panagiotoulias also referred to the Osaka's Kansai/ Dallas and
Nagoya's Chubu/ Chicago routes which the airline had suspended
between 2005 and 2006. Commenting on Chubu International Airport in
particular, he said, while appreciating its enhanced airport
facilities and excellent connections with domestic flights, "The
market prospects in Chubu region were theoretically good, but in
reality the market turned out to be still immature."
The biggest factor, he said, was that the consumers after all
were not yet travel oriented. He further commented, "In spite of
direct service available from Kansai and Chubu, Narita yet attracts
more of the business traffic. Unless the customer's buying behavior
changes in favor of first and business class travel from Kansai and
Chubu airports, it would be difficult to resume the service from
there. Nagoya's Chubu Airport, however, may have hidden potential to
become on-line from a long-term point of view, he observed, citing,
"The feasibility would depend on its future market potential of
business or higher class traffic demand and importantly seamless
connections to be provided by JAL."
*American Airlines in talks with BA and CO, he confirmed, but without
elaborating.
British Airways (BA) meanwhile announced on April 30 that it was
in discussion with Continental Airlines (CO) and American Airlines
(AA). "The discussion has just started," Panagiotoulias confirmed,
but declined further comment as "nothing to elaborate." However, he
made his comments on the current airline industry that "In spite of
worsening environment of the global economy, ever soaring fuel prices
and fewer passengers, airlines nevertheless continue to produce
highly excessive seat capacity."
While he suggested that if airlines would opt to mergers, and
fine-tune the capacity expansion, it would be one of the solutions to
respond to the ever changing market, he also admitted, "It was indeed
extremely difficult," referring to its merger deal in the past with
other airlines including TWA.
Having said that, he added that he did not necessarily mean that
the airline's future would not see any merger deal. Each and every
airline should evaluate every possible strategy and be ready to
quickly respond to any changes the world may bring to the airline
industry, concluded Panagiotoulias of American Airlines.
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