When it comes to Tokyo Airports, Haneda is significantly more convenient than Narita, since it’s closer to the city. Historically a majority of long haul flights have been into Narita due to Haneda being significantly slot restricted, but that has slowly been changing.
For example, recently US airlines got access to an additional dozen slots at Haneda Airport, which were distributed between American, Delta, Hawaiian, and United.
Japanese airlines have also been given additional Haneda slots for US flights, also causing them to largely shift their US operations.
I first wrote about this in mid-November, though wanted to update that post, because the schedule and launch date have now been revealed for the new Tokyo Haneda to San Francisco route, which wasn’t initially the case.
Japanese carriers are getting a total of 12 daytime Haneda slots for US flights, and those are being equally distributed between All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines.
All Nippon Airways Adding Six US Flights From Haneda
With the recent changes to Haneda slots, we will see All Nippon Airways add six new flights to the US out of Haneda. Most of these will replace Narita flights, though that’s not the case across the board.
Let’s take a look at the details.
New ANA Haneda To Houston Flight
As of March 29, 2020, ANA will be shifting their daily Houston flight from Narita to Haneda. The new flight will be operated by a four cabin 777-300ER with the following schedule:
NH114 Haneda to Houston departing 10:20AM arriving 8:40AM
NH113 Houston to Haneda departing 1:10PM arriving 5:00PM (+1 day)
New ANA Haneda To San Jose Flight
As of March 29, 2020, ANA will be shifting their daily San Jose flight from Narita to Haneda. The new flight will be operated by a three cabin 787-8 with the following schedule:
NH120 Haneda to San Jose departing 5:05PM arriving 10:30AM
NH119 San Jose to Haneda departing 12:20PM arriving 3:20PM (+1 day)
New ANA Haneda To Seattle Flight
As of March 29, 2020, ANA will be shifting their daily Seattle flight from Narita to Haneda. The new flight will be operated by a three cabin 787-8 with the following schedule:
NH118 Haneda to Seattle departing 9:00PM arriving 2:10PM
NH117 Seattle to Haneda departing 4:40PM arriving 7:00PM (+1 day)
New ANA Haneda To Washington Flight
As of March 29, 2020, ANA will be shifting their daily Washington Dulles flight from Narita to Haneda. The new flight will be operated by a four cabin 777-300ER with the following schedule:
NH102 Haneda to Washington departing 10:55AM arriving 10:35AM
NH101 Washington to Haneda departing 1:10PM arriving 4:15PM (+1 day)
Second Daily ANA Haneda To Los Angeles Flight
ANA currently flies three times daily to Los Angeles — twice out of Narita and once out of Haneda. As of March 29, 2020, ANA will be shifting one of their daily Narita to Los Angeles flights to instead operate out of Haneda, meaning they’ll have one daily flight from Narita and two daily flights from Haneda.
The new flight will be operated by a four cabin 777-300ER with the following schedule:
NH126 Haneda to Los Angeles departing 9:05PM arriving 3:05PM
NH125 Los Angeles to Haneda departing 5:05PM arriving 9:15PM (+1 day)
ANA Adding Haneda To San Francisco Flight
This is the latest update. Initially ANA didn’t reveal when this flight would launch or what the schedule would look like, but that has now changed.
As of March 29, 2020, ANA will be launching 3x weekly flights from Haneda to San Francisco. It’s interesting to see less than a daily frequency, since most other flights are daily.
The airline has six daily Haneda slots for the US, so it would appear that they’re not fully utilizing them. That makes me believe that they probably simply don’t have the available aircraft to operate the flight daily.
The new flight will be operated by a four cabin 777-300ER with the following schedule:
NH108 Haneda to San Francisco departing 10:55PM arriving 4:25PM [Tue, Fri, Sun]
NH107 San Francisco to Haneda departing 1:45AM arriving 5:00AM (+1 day) [Mon, Wed, Sat]
The new flight is expected to go on sale on Monday, January 27, 2020, so this could be a good opportunity to snag some award seats, as I’d say it’s fairly likely they’ll have some award availability.
While everyone has different timing preferences, personally I find those times to be quite brutal, especially for the westbound flight.
What Narita Flights Does That Leave?
With six new US routes for ANA out of Tokyo Haneda, what does that leave for their Narita service to the US? Looking at the summer 2020 schedule, ANA will continue to operate:
- One of two daily Chicago flights out of Narita
- One of three daily Los Angeles flights out of Narita
- One of two daily New York JFK flights out of Narita
- One daily San Francisco flight out of Narita (in addition to the new 3x weekly Haneda flight)
- Two daily Honolulu flights out of Narita
ANA does note that Narita’s international network will expand throughout 2020 and beyond, adding new connections between North America and Asia.
Bottom Line
ANA will be making huge adjustments to their US route network in the summer of 2020, just ahead of the Olympics. In general this shift to Haneda is good news for those actually visiting Tokyo, while it’s generally bad news for those connecting beyond Japan.
The Haneda flights aren’t banked as well as the Narita flights were, so this won’t be ideal for connections. I guess we also have to wait and see what US routes are added out of Narita, though frankly I don’t expect that much growth, since ANA isn’t taking delivery of new planes at a very fast pace.
The last of the above routes will be going on sale this coming Monday, as the new 3x weekly Haneda to San Francisco flight will finally be loaded into the schedule. Hopefully there’s some award availability.
What do you make of ANA switching most of their US route network to Haneda?
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