Delta has formally responded to both American and Hawaiian’s bids to take away their Seattle (SEA) – Haneda (HND) slots. In the 33 page response, Delta said that:
American and Hawaiian’s efforts to strip Seattle and Washington State of their only Haneda flight and move the slots to abundantly served states in California and Hawaii is contrary to the public interest. If service were taken away from Seattle it would be the largest U.S.-Tokyo O&D gateway without nonstop service to Haneda. Seattle would also be the largest west coast business center without Haneda service, placing Seattle and the Pacific Northwest region at a disadvantage to the well-served cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles (to say nothing of Hawaii which currently enjoys 3 of 8 Haneda opportunities). Delta is demonstrably and deeply committed to growing its Seattle hub and to daily flying of the Seattle-Haneda route beginning this March and continuing through the winter and summer seasons beyond. It is manifestly in the public interest to allow Delta to do so, rather than to revoke Seattle’s only Haneda connection in favor of the over-served Los Angeles or Hawaii gateways.
In total, Delta notes six reasons why they should be allowed to keep the route, including the promise of a return to daily service…a promise they made when they originally won the slot. At times, the reasoning is contradictive – describing their “superior” connection opportunities due to the Alaska Airlines codeshares, then knocking them and noting the potential for increased interest in the route as they continue to transition more service to their own metal. It’s an interesting read that you should check out.
American of course provided a lengthy rebuttal to Delta’s response. AA comments on Delta’s blaming of Alaska Airlines for the lack of success on the SEA-HND route as well as the “hypocritical” nature of DL’s other responses. They conclude that many of Delta’s reasons to fix the service won’t work and that the route will likely return to seasonal service. Check out AA’s full rebuttal here.
Related – American – “Give Us Delta’s SEA Tokyo Slots for LAX”
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5 comments
That graph is extremely misleading.
iif the demand is that strong, why would delta not running it daily now?
Lol is that graph from DL’s response? That is indeed hypocritical.
Delta absolutely deserves to lose the slot. Seattle probably can’t support three daily nonstops to Tokyo (there are two nonstops now to NRT, one of them operated by Delta), or at least not at a level of profitability that would make it worth Delta’s while to consistently operate the HND route. But if that’s the case Delta shouldn’t be allowed to just sit on a valuable resource. BTW didn’t Delta do something similar a few years ago – I can’t seem to find the details online now but I recall that they got one of the (then highly limited and coveted) US-China rights to operate Detroit-Beijing (or was it Shanghai?) nonstop, but then changed it to a connecting flight via NRT, a route which never would have been approved in DOT’s original selection process, given the intense competition.
[…] they are going forward with their review of whether to strip Delta of their SEA-HND slots, despite Delta’s formal response earlier this week. The DOT was not impressed and said nothing in the response from Delta changed […]