Delta suspends Tokyo – Hong Kong

Delta Airlines has told Business Traveller Asia-Pacific that it will discontinue its daily DL121 Tokyo (Narita) – Hong Kong return service with effect from October 26. The three-class B767-300ER service leaves Delta’s Asian hub at Narita every evening at 1830 to arrive in Hong Kong at 2245. The return DL285 departs Hong Kong daily at 0820 to arrive in Japan at 1350. The airline will also axe its daily Nagoya – Manila service from October 26, and reduce capacity on the Detroit – Nagoya ‘feeder’ route by employing a smaller Airbus A330-200 aircraft in exchange for the originally deployed Boeing B747-400 ‘jumbo jet’. Delta had announced significant cutbacks in its Pacific division in a memo to its employees in late July. The airline has been continuously reducing the size of its Narita hub in favour of more non-stop services from its Seattle hub. Hong Kong and Shanghai, for instance, have received direct Seattle links in June, significantly reducing total travel time between the two cities and Seattle. On another note, the carrier will phase out 4 of its 16 remaining Boeing B747-400 aircraft by end-2014. For more information, visit delta.com Dominic Sebastian Lalk