An airplane prepares to land at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. (Tomhiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg)

By Julie Johnsson | Five U.S. carriers are jockeying to be the first to enter Haneda
Airport, Tokyo’s equivalent to Midway Airport, which is being opened to
American airlines for the first time since 1978.
 
American, Continental, Delta, Hawaiian and United Airlines all applied
Tuesday for the four new flights to Haneda that the Japanese government
is making available as a result of a proposed aviation treaty between
the U.S. and Japan.

Haneda is the fourth-busiest airport in the world and the preferred Tokyo airport for many travelers, which makes it a prize to airlines battling for dominance over the Northern Pacific as trade barriers are lowered.
 
U.S. carriers have long sought access to Haneda because it already serves as a major hub for domestic flights and is far closer to the Tokyo’s center than rival Narita. But they’ve been barred from the airport since Narita was opened in 1978 because Japanese authorities sought to ensure a healthy flow of international flights to Narita, located more than an hour from the city.
 
The Japanese government isn’t offering U.S. airlines unfettered access to Haneda, however. That’s raising questions about just how open the Japanese market will be to international rivals under the new Open Skies agreement, slated to take effect this fall.
 
The new Haneda slots assigned to the U.S. airlines signal that “Japan is still allocating access rights to one of its busiest airports,” said Brian Havel, professor of international law at Chicago’s DePaul University. “That doesn’t sound like open skies to me.”
 
Under the terms of engagement set by the Japanese, U.S. carriers also face tight restrictions as to when they can operate flights. All arrivals and departures must largely occur during the dead of night: between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.
 
Since inbound flights from the U.S. will arrive at the slowest point in airport operations, most U.S. travelers won’t be able to catch connecting flights at Haneda.
 
“It is very clear that the Japanese government is going to view this as a test,” said Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst with Forrester Research Inc. “They want to put it in a time when it won’t disrupt the existing daytime flights.”
 
But traveling during off-peak hours when customs lines are short and the airport is deserted could still make Haneda appealing to U.S. business travelers, Harteveldt noted.
 
The flights would allow passengers to put in a full day at the office since they would depart from the U.S. in the evening rather than during the morning or mid-day, which is the norm for Narita-bound planes.
 
And travelers could make a quick exit from Tokyo after wrapping up meetings. Many business travelers would select a flight that leaves after midnight over another night’s stay in a hotel.
 
“I see this as something business travelers will favorably respond to,” Harteveldt added.
 
Competition for the right to enter Haneda already looks to be intense. The service is expected to begin after Haneda opens a new runway this October. Here are how the offers stack up:

• United has proposed a single daily flight that would originate in San Francisco.
• American seeks two flights, one each from its hubs at Los Angeles International Airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
• Continental proposes a daily flight from both Newark Liberty International Airport and A.B. Won Pat International Airport in Guam.
• Hawaiian Airlines proposes two daily flights from Honolulu
• Delta Air Lines proposes four flights, which would depart from Seattle, Detroit, Los Angeles and Honolulu.

Delta has the most at stake in the Haneda sweepstakes, Havel said, since
it was left out of the new wave of trans-Pacific link-ups after Japan
Air Lines opted to remain partners with American earlier this month.
United and Continental are teaming up with All Nippon Airways, the other
major Japanese carrier