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Delta has advised the Transportation Department that it still isn’t ready to operate a Tokyo-Guangzhou connecting leg as part of its U.S.-Asia service, but it wants to hang on to the unused route rights, which were granted in 2010.

The carrier faces a use-it-or-lose-it deadline of June 1 to begin the service, using rights under the U.S.-China agreement to operate seven weekly flights on the route, but it is asking for a one-year postponement.

The deadline has been postponed before, but Delta said there is no harm to the public or other carriers because there is a surplus of U.S.-China flight authority. It said airline rights for 37 weekly flights to China are already going unused.

At the same time, Delta formally returned to the DOT the seven weekly frequencies it had been using for its Atlanta-Shanghai nonstop service, which had been operating off-and-on since 2008.