The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has received proposals from American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Hawaiian Airlines concerning their intended use of newly allocated Tokyo Haneda slot pairs.

During talks with the DOT in Japan in February this year, the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLITT) agreed to increase the number of slot-pairings allocated to US carriers from the current four (all night-time), to six constituting five daytime slots (i.e. limited to use between 06h00L and 22h55L) and one night-time slot (i.e. limited to use between 22h00L and 06h55L), with effect from late-October of this year.

Four of the new day-time slot-pairings have already been allocated, on a temporary basis through to March 25, 2017, to the four carriers that already serve Haneda namely: American, Delta, United, and Hawaiian. As such, the DOT will, in the interim, conduct a formal allocation process to consider the proposals put forward by the four airlines.

Of the applications:

American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) has requested two day-time slots for its proposed year-round, daily services from each of Dallas/Fort Worth and Los Angeles International to Tokyo Haneda using B777-200(ER) and B787-8 equipment respectively.

Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson) says it is seeking to use three day-time slot pairings to open up daily flights to Haneda from each of Los Angeles Int'l, Minneapolis St. Paul International, and Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson. Operations would be on-board B767-300(ER) and/or B777-200(ER) equipment.

United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) asks for its current Haneda slot pairing to be retained for its daily, year-round San Francisco service and requests another day-time slot to allow it to begin a year-round service to Tokyo from New York Newark using B777-200(ER) equipment.

Lastly, Hawaiian Airlines (HA, Honolulu) has asked for a day-time slot allocation for its existing Honolulu-Tokyo Haneda route and seeks additional authority to operate a second daily route from Haneda serving Honolulu 4x weekly and Kona, Hawai'i 3x weekly using day-time slot allocations as well. In the event neither of the two options is awarded, the carrier asks for the night-time slot allocation for use in a year-round service from Haneda to Honolulu (4x weekly) and Kona (3x weekly).

The DOT will issue its first response later next month although a definitive decision is not expected to be made ahead of the deadline for the submission of schedules to the MLITT for the winter 2016/17 season.

The Japanese MLIT has meanwhile awarded three day-time and one night-time slot for US flights to ANA - All Nippon Airways (NH, Tokyo Haneda) and two day-time slots to JAL - Japan Airlines (JL, Tokyo Haneda). Using night-time slots, ANA currently serves Honolulu and Los Angeles while JAL operates to Honolulu and San Francisco.