Delta Cancels New York JFK – Tokyo Narita Service

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Tokyo has been the center of a number of Delta’s battles over the past 18 months. It all started when, back in 2014, American Airlines successfully challenged the airline’s right to operate its Seattle – Haneda route and that skirmish was followed by Delta’s attempt to derail American’s new service Haneda service from Los Angeles in November last year.

The latest installment of the Tokyo saga began last month when Delta scored a win over American when it beat out another American bid to serve Haneda with its own proposal to offer service from Minneapolis. I thought that would be the end of things for a while but, just last week American announced that it was challenging the U.S. Department of Transportation’s decision so that row rumbles on.

Now things have taken another twist at Tokyo’s other major airport.

Delta has announced that, from this fall, it will cancel its New York (JFK) to Narita service as well as its Narita – Bangkok and Narita – Osaka services.

The cancellation schedule is as follows:

• New York  (JFK) – Tokyo (Narita) cancelled from 3 October 2016
• Tokyo (Narita) – Osaka (Kansai) cancelled from 3 October 2016
• Tokyo (Narita) – Bangkok cancelled from 3 October 2016

The airline is doing its best to assure customers that it’s still committed to Asia and Delta’s SVP Asia-Pacific, Vinay Dube, even gave an interview to emphasize the point.

The reason given for the service cancellations was:

Delta has closely analyzed the frequency authorities the DOT tentatively awarded at Haneda in the context of the significant advantages our competitors and their joint venture partners enjoy as a result of the aviation agreement between the U.S. and Japan. Given this, we had to make the difficult decision to cancel service from JFK to Tokyo-Narita, and from NRT to Osaka and Bangkok to ensure Delta’s long term success in this fast-growing region of the world.”

Where’s that emoticon for a crying baby?

Considering the advantages Delta has had in Asia courtesy of the US government it’s a bit pathetic to start crying now.

Note: Northwest, now part of Delta, was handed unique rights in Tokyo following the US victory in World War II and it’s those right that, to this day, give Delta the base it has in Tokyo.

Dube went on to say:

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 LAX and MSP service to HND. In the meantime, cancelled markets will be served by at least one of Delta’s codeshare partners.

 On Delta’s future plans there was a bit more wailing and teeth gnashing before he got to the point:

Our go-forward strategy here includes mitigating the impact of the U.S. and Japan governments’ agreement by reworking our Asia-Pacific footprint to one that primarily supports direct flying between the U.S. and Asia, while maintaining some interport and Micronesia flying. We will also continue identifying opportunities to expand in Asia – our application for LAX-PEK service is just one example. Delta remains committed to growing and strengthening Delta’s Asia presence over the long term.

Dube confirmed that Delta’s other services to Tokyo are safe and that the airline will continue to operate flights to Narita from Seattle, Portland and Detroit and to Haneda from MSP and LAX.

It would seem that Delta has no immediate plans to cut any more of its routes out of Tokyo either:

We will also continue flying from Tokyo-Narita to Shanghai, Taipei, Singapore and Manila, while our service to resort destinations of Hawaii, Guam, Saipan and Palau will also be maintained.

 There wasn’t much other information in the Q&A session and, as the rest of the discussion consisted primarily of more whining, I spare you any further details.

Anyone wishing to read the full Q&A can access it via this link.

Bottom Line

If you were booked on the Delta JFK – Narita route then, hopefully, the airline has already been in contact with you to help you change your plans (although they have had a particularly trouble some week so…..).

If you had a booking and you haven’t heard from Delta I’d give them a call asap.

Overall this clearly isn’t good news for Delta flyers. The airline’s New York-based travelers are left without a non-stop option to Tokyo (American and United may pick up the slack on this route) and two popular 5th freedom routes out of Tokyo are about to disappear….but Delta still has a big presence in Japan’s capital so it’s not all doom and gloom.