Hawaiian Airlines has struck out again in its bid for a route between Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport and Kona.
The state’s largest carrier, which was rejected two previous times, had been hoping to get the nod after the U.S. Department of Transportation reopened bidding over concern that Delta Air Lines was underutilizing its Haneda-Seattle service with reduced flights during the winter.
But Delta applied to retain its Seattle slot and agreed to the DOT’s condition that it operate daily flights year-round. Delta said it plans to resume daily service Sunday.
The DOT said in its tentative order issued Friday that if Delta doesn’t provide daily service, then the slot would be awarded to American Airlines for its proposed Haneda-Los Angeles route.
Hawaiian Airlines President and CEO Mark Dunkerley said the decision "to allow Delta Air Lines to retain the valuable right to fly from Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport for largely unused service to Seattle is tremendously disappointing."
"We are further disappointed that the U.S. DOT has determined that should Delta’s planned service continue to fail, the Haneda slots will be assigned to American Airlines," he added.
Hawaiian and American began petitioning the DOT to reallocate the slot after Delta announced last year it would be reducing the frequency of its Haneda-Seattle service during the winter from daily to seasonal.
In December the DOT said it would consider reallocating the Delta slot, one of four Haneda slots that was awarded to U.S. carriers in 2010.
Delta initially used that slot for Haneda-Detroit service before getting permission from the DOT to transfer it to Seattle.
If Hawaiian had landed the Haneda-Kona route, it would have represented Hawaii island’s first scheduled flights from Japan since Japan Airlines ended service Oct. 29, 2010, from Narita Airport outside Tokyo.
"Hawaiian is the only airline to have operated Haneda service continuously and successfully since the slot rights were granted," Dunkerley said. "Our proposal provided more seats and would have resulted in more travelers flying between Japan and the United States than either Delta’s or American’s proposal. Kona is the largest unserved market in this proceeding, and Hawaiian’s proposed route would have generated more economic benefit than that offered by either Delta or American. None of these facts are in dispute by the DOT."
Business travelers generally prefer Haneda because it is about 10 miles from downtown Tokyo, while Narita International Airport is about 40 miles away.
The DOT said in considering American and Hawaiian that it did not find the attributes of their competing proposals sufficiently compelling to outweigh the public benefits of daily Seattle-Haneda service.
In addition, the DOT noted that the state of Hawaii already has three of the eight total U.S.-Haneda route opportunities available to U.S. and Japanese carriers since Hawaiian already has a Haneda-Honolulu route and Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways have one Haneda-Honolulu route apiece.
"Sadly, by dismissing Hawaiian’s proposed Kona route as just simply being additive to the routes already serving Hawaii, the DOT has once more failed to appreciate the geography of the 50th state," Dunkerley said. "Kona and Honolulu are separate markets, separate communities and indeed are located on separate islands.
"The tentative ruling also reveals a long-held institutional bias among decision makers favoring the interests of U.S. business travelers over those of U.S. travel-related businesses and travelers in general."
Of the four Haneda slots that were awarded in 2010, Hawaiian sought two Haneda-Honolulu slots but received only one. Delta received two at the time — one for Los Angeles and one for Detroit — and American Airlines received one for New York.
In November 2012, Hawaiian lost a bid for a Haneda-Kona route when the DOT approved Delta’s request to transfer the carrier’s previously approved Haneda slot in Detroit to Seattle rather than allow another airline to use the Haneda slot.
Then in March 2014 Hawaiian lost its bid again for a Haneda-Kona route. That slot became available when American discontinued its money-losing Haneda-New York service in December.
The slot was awarded to United Airlines for Haneda service to San Francisco.
