Los Angeles to Tokyo is already a very busy market, with 8x daily flights, operated by American (2x daily), ANA (2x daily), Delta (1x daily), Japan Airlines (1x daily), Singapore (1x daily), and United (1x daily). It looks like this market is now getting a ninth daily flight. ANA has just announced that as of…
Continue reading: ANA Is Adding A Third Daily Flight Between Tokyo And Los Angeles
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No way they'll operate the A380 to LA. They're configuring them as high density beach market airplanes with tons of coach seats. Not the premium configuration that the LA market can sustain.
@Jason, ANA has stated that their A380s will have an F cabin, so they aren't ignoring premium traffic either!
Didn't Garuda also state they are planning to start LAX-NRT this summer? (As part of LAX-NRT-CGK?) I wonder what the status on that is.
LAX is not a mega-hub for any airline and as such requires very specific connections to make international flights work versus having a throng of flights arriving from everywhere to fill planes to Asia. Those connections will be built around UA's asia bank of flights and NH either connects into those or flies half full. On top of that, TBIT is probably at or over capacity throughout peak times of day which also hinder NH's efforts to pick different flight times. 2x 777 vs 1x A380 is a good argument if you ignore the cargo hold. 2x 777 in the ANA configuration can take a fair amount of cargo which you don't have to feed and generally doesn't complain or have feelings that can be hurt.
@Todd- what UA asia bank of flights are you talking about? United doesnt have an Asia bank of flights at NRT anymore - they've gotten rid of them completely.
@Davis - Lol good catch. United's 787 configs are tight and the 77W is even worse! It has 116 more seats than ANA's config.
Thai, Malaysia and Varig all flew NRT-LAX back in the late 90s so it was even busier market back then.
"On the surface this route seems like an ideal candidate for one of ANA’s A380s. Many airlines understandably prefer operating smaller planes and spacing out frequencies to give travelers as many options as possible, but with flights operated so close together, an A380 sure seems more efficient."
...and that's why you're a travel blogger and don't work in network planning.
I flew SAS ARN-LAX June 2nd, and we parked at the remote gates. I returned to ARN June 18th, and we once again used the remote gates. SAS flight times are during mid afternoon peak hours, but still, it leaves a horrible impression starting and ending a trip at these gates. I saw a few other airlines out there, like Etihad and Air Fiji, so it seems like there's a big capacity issues at TBIT at the moment. The new midfield concourse can't come soon enough!
I'm flying ANA First Class this upcoming Sunday and it did show a 1:20am departure from LAX last I checked.