Delta Airlines Loses SEA - HND Seasonal Slot..AA Will Occupy
In a battle started last October by AA, Delta Air Lines fought for months to hold onto its right to fly between SEA and HND.
After all that, Delta informed the U.S. Department of Transportation late Wednesday that it would give up the route in late September.
“Delta has determined that its Seattle-Haneda service is not viable under the current regulatory and market conditions, and therefore will suspend service. The last flight departing SEA International Airport will be on Sept. 28, 2015, and the last flight from HND will depart on Sept. 30, 2015,” Delta spokesman Trebor Banstetter said Thursday. “After those operations, Delta will return the slot to the Department of Transportation.”
He said the airline “remains committed to our international hub in SEA, and will continue to provide SEA-HND via our daily nonstop service to NRT. In addition, Delta will continue to serve HND from LAX International Airport.”
The route authority will flop to American, which will begin flights from LAX to HND in October. That service will be competing directly against Delta’s flight and one operated by All Nippon Airways, an alliance partner of UA.
“We’re excited to be flying from LAX to HND this fall, and we look forward to giving our customers better access to downtown Tokyo and further building on our presence in Asia,” AA spokesman Casey Norton said Thursday.
When that happens, that route authority will be on its third U.S. city. It started out as a DTW-HND route for Delta, moved to SEA and now to LAX.
American launched a war over the Haneda route last Oct. 2 when it asked DOT to take the route away from Delta and give it to American to fly Los Angeles-Haneda.
AA pointed out that DL for half the year was flying the route only often enough to avoid letting the route go dormant 90 days in a row. That would trigger a possible revocation of the route authority.
On Dec. 15, DOT responded by starting a proceeding to consider if Delta should hang onto the Haneda route.
Delta vigorously defended the route and its right to hold onto it, questioned the legality of the DOT review and said it would go to daily service anyway.
“Seasonal variations are common in many international markets and while Delta is operating at a temporarily-reduced level, Delta has firm plans, has allocated aircraft, is actively marketing, and will operate daily service at the start of the IATA Summer Season, effective March 29, 2015 and beyond,” Delta said in a January response.
In a decision made final on Monday, the DOT left Delta keep the Seattle-Haneda route. However, it required Delta to operate it every day of the year or face losing it to the backup airline, American, for Los Angeles-Haneda service.
