Hawaiian Airlines is renewing its quest to offer daily nonstop service between Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport and Kona.
The state’s largest carrier said it will file an application with the U.S. Department of Transportation on Thursday to try to snag a slot that will become available in the wake of American Airlines’ recent decision to discontinue service Dec. 1 between Haneda and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Hawaiian said it would use a 294-seat Airbus A330-200 on the route.
American said the flight has been unprofitable because the restricted hours it was allowed to operate affected customers’ connecting flights to and from other Asian markets.
United Airlines, which also has its eyes on the coveted slot, already has submitted an application for a Haneda-San Francisco route.
"These are hotly contested routes," Hawaiian President and CEO Mark Dunkerley said Tuesday in a telephone interview. "I think we have the best case that will most comprehensively benefit the United States, the U.S. economy and travelers flying on this route. There are currently no nonstops between Japan and Kona, and there is today competing service to San Francisco, which is what United wants to use the service for."
Hawaii island has been without scheduled flights from Japan since Japan Airlines ended service Oct. 29, 2010, from Narita International Airport outside Tokyo. A Haneda-Kona route would generate $74 million of annual U.S. economic activity and support an additional 1,400 jobs — mainly on Hawaii island, according to a letter that the Hawaii Tourism Authority submitted to the DOT last year when Hawaiian Airlines unsuccessfully bid for the route. That would be a big boost for the island, where the not-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Hawaii County in August was 5.8 percent, the highest of any of the state’s four major counties, according to most recent data available from the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.
"Kona is Hawaii’s second-largest destination market for Japanese visitors, and daily nonstop service from Tokyo would generate a substantial amount of foreign spending that will invigorate the local, state and national economies," Dunkerley said in a statement.
In September 2012, Hawaiian submitted to the U.S. DOT 175 letters of support for the proposed Haneda-Kona route. Among those submitting letters were Gov. Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii island Mayor Billy Kenoi and George Applegate, executive director of the Big Island Visitors Bureau. Hawaiian’s bid followed a request from Delta Airlines to change its Haneda route from underperforming Detroit to Seattle. The DOT ultimately granted Delta’s request to offer Haneda-Seattle service.
Under a U.S.-Japanese agreement, U.S. airlines are permitted to operate a total of four daily round-trip flights per day at Haneda Airport, where operations are limited. In 2010 the DOT awarded Delta two of those routes, one for service from Detroit and the other from Los Angeles. The other routes approved at that time from Haneda were Hawaiian’s Honolulu service and American Airlines’ route to New York that is now being dropped. Hawaiian actually applied for two Haneda-Honolulu routes in 2010 but was granted only one.
With the one Haneda route, Hawaiian began offering nonstop daily service between Tokyo and Honolulu in November 2010. Hawaiian subsequently added service to Honolulu from Osaka, Fukuoka, Sapporo and Sendai, and now provides 6,700 seats per week between Japan and the islands.
