Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) will be upping the flight frequency on its Tokyo Haneda-Hong Kong route while trimming flights on its Tokyo Narita-Chengdu service from October 29 this year.
The airline’s Hong Kong service will go from a nine times weekly to a 12-14 times weekly operation. Flights NH821 and NH822, which will be getting the increase, operate on different days of the week during different periods.
Meanwhile its Tokyo Narita-Chengdu service will drop from a daily operation to just four times per week.
Both these changes are expected to come on the same day as ANA’s previously announced doubling of its flights to Los Angeles from Tokyo Narita, which will see the airline’s overall flights between Tokyo’s two airports and Los Angeles go to three times a day.
The schedule adjustments were announced in ANA’s flight schedule for the second half of the 2017 financial year, and will also see certain equipment changes.
For instance, the carrier’s daily Tokyo Narita-Singapore service will go from a mixed B777-300ER and B787-8 Dreamliner operation to an all Dreamliner service, using a mixture of B787-8 and B787-9 aircraft. Meanwhile its Tokyo Narita-Beijing daily flights will go from an entirely B787-8 Dreamliner-operated service to a mixed service also using its B767-300ER.
According to the airline, in the first half of the 2017 fiscal year it looked to refine is flight schedule in order to “best utilise the respective characteristics of Narita and Haneda Airports as part of the airline’s Dual Hub Model for the Tokyo metropolitan area”. This also entailed increasing the demand for connections through Japan between North America and Asia.
ANA isn’t the only airline with its eyes on connectivity between North America and Japan. Delta recently took delivery of its first A350, which it plans to fly from Detroit to Tokyo Narita starting October 30.
