All Nippon Airways grows with new Haneda slots, with some replacement of Narita services

All Nippon Airways is implementing growth made possible by its contentious victory in being awarded 11 new slots Tokyo Haneda slots in the recent allocations, while arch rival Japan Airlines received only five. ANA in Dec-2013 announced its intentions for eight of those slots. As expected, there is a mix between using Haneda slots to facilitate growth and others to replace existing services from Tokyo Narita.

An all new service to Vancouver, ANA's first Canadian destination, will be accompanied by an additional service to Paris CDG. But ANA's London Heathrow service will switch from Narita to Haneda. Regionally, Hanoi, Manila and Jakarta see new services while Bangkok and Singapore will have Narita flights shifted to Haneda.

The three remaining slots go to China (one) and Germany (two). Given current market conditions, it is unlikely that ANA would use all of those slots in the short term for entirely new services. That potentially means six of the 11 will be used to shift Narita flights to Haneda rather than provide the entirely new growth that was trumpeted during the slot allocation process. This is a reality known but not acknowledged as Japan's airlines seek to focus on their core home market while Asian competitors - with the necessary lower costs - pick up the slack.