Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson) Senior Vice President (Asia Pacific), Vinay Dube, says the carrier will reshape its Tokyo operations later this autumn in line with a US Department of Transportation (DOT) decision to tentatively award it two Tokyo Haneda daytime slot pairs.

At present, Delta's Tokyo operations are focused on Tokyo Narita but in light of the Haneda allocations, it has now elected to cancel its New York JFK-Narita service as well as its Bangkok Suvarnabhumi and Osaka Kansai (its only domestic Japanese service) flights later this autumn.

"Delta remains committed to growing and strengthening our Asia presence over the long term, and we are optimistic that the DOT will issue a final award for Delta to operate Los Angeles International and Minneapolis/St. Paul service to Haneda," he said in a company interview. "In the meantime, cancelled markets will be served by at least one of Delta’s codeshare partners."

Despite the start of Haneda operations, Delta will retain some Narita services including those to Shanghai Pudong, Taipei Taoyuan, Singapore Changi, Manila Ninoy Aquino International, Honolulu, Guam International, and Saipan, Dube added.

Given its heavy presence at Narita, Delta, prior to this year's US-Japan bilateral talks, had lobbied strongly to be allowed to shift its entire Narita operation to Haneda; a move that would have required fourteen slot pairs, far more than the 5+1 (five daytime and one night-time) eventually awarded.

Delta had argued that forcing US airlines to re-route their US-Japan operations through Haneda would put it at a severe disadvantage given that it does not have any local codeshare partners operating out of the airport at present. In contrast, rivals United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) and American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) have separate codeshare agreements with two of Japan's largest carriers - ANA - All Nippon Airways (NH, Tokyo Haneda) and JAL - Japan Airlines (JL, Tokyo Haneda) - thus providing them with added domestic and regional connectivity.

"By forcing Delta to maintain a split operation in Tokyo with operations at both Haneda and Narita, valuable traffic will be syphoned away from Delta’s remaining Narita flights to competitors’ more convenient Haneda flights," Dube argued.

However, Delta's demand for greater access to Haneda could be realized in the not too distant future. The Japanese government, cognizant of the airport's greater commercial appeal given its proximity to downtown Tokyo, has opened dialogue with communities in and around Haneda about a proposed increase in the number of aircraft movements.

According to a Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport proposal, the government is looking at opening a new flight path over the city centre that would boost Haneda's annual traffic by 39,000 movements. The added slot-pairings would all be allocated to international flights, the report said.

The project, if given the green light, is expected to be completed by the time the 2020 Olympic Games open in Tokyo.