By Shawn Gallagher
American Airlines is expected to begin direct service between Tokyo Haneda and New York JFK at some point this year, the carrier announced Friday night. American received approval from the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) to begin the route, as it won slots at Tokyo Haneda Airport in a bid against United Airlines.
The route is planned to be flown with a Boeing 777-200ER.
Although we don’t know yet when exactly this route will launch, American stated that they plan the begin the service “in the coming months.”
Increasing Capacity Between Tokyo And New York
American Airlines currently serves 3 flights a day to Haneda, in addition to another daily route serving Narita. However, since Haneda is widely considered the more convenient option when visiting Tokyo, airlines are eager to serve this airport. The addition of a HND-JFK route will make it 4 flights daily to Haneda and will add nearly 200,000 round-trip seats a year, according to American. The Tokyo to New York route is already served heavily by the Japanese airlines, Japan Airlines and ANA. Oneworld flyers will now have more options when flying between the east coast United States and Japan. This will link the two economic powerhouses even closer together and offer more options to conduct business.
The addition of this route makes sense, as travel between Tokyo and New York is a huge market with a lot of demand. It will be interesting to see how this affects price competition with the Japanese airlines. Airfares rose during the pandemic due to demand and capacity, and it has remained high after the pandemic.
All photos taken by the author.