U.S. airlines will be able to fly to Tokyo’s Haneda
Airport during the daytime under an amendment to the U.S.-Japan air transport
agreement.
The daytime flights are expected to begin as early as
this fall, said the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo announced.
Haneda is Japan’s largest airport and is also located
more than 30 miles closer to downtown Tokyo than its primary alternative,
Narita International Airport. But under the current U.S.-Japan aviation
agreement, U.S. carriers are allotted a
total of just four daily arrivals and departures into Haneda, all of them
restricted to nighttime hours.
The amended agreement would increase the number of
allotments, called slot pairs, to six daily, with five to be operated during
the daytime and one to be operated at night.
American Airlines, which began daily service between Los
Angeles and Haneda last week, reacted quickly to the news Thursday. The flight,
which currently arrives in Tokyo at 11 p.m. and departs at 1:30 a.m., will be
shifted to the daytime this fall.
“Earlier arrival times in the U.S. and Japan will allow
for more convenient connections to American’s robust network out of LAX,” the
carrier said.
United, which flies from San Francisco to
Haneda, also commended the agreement.