Tokyo Haneda slot - How will Virgin Operate it? [CNS-HND flights ceased Feb '25]

[Quickstatus]

Will the 700s be load restricted

Most likely. Maybe every Y pax gets a middle seat shadow? And cabin crew will have a pick of the unoccupied Y seats

4 pilot flight

Upthread it appears to be a 2 pilot op.

 

[Pele]

You may well be rebooked onto a superior carrier’s product if they don’t launch on time. Fingers crossed for you.

My understanding of the announcement is everybody will still be flying on a Virgin plane to/from Haneda just an old one.

 

[henrus]

The 737-700 appears to now be loaded on flights.

 

[Digicola]

The 737-700 appears to now be loaded on flights.

Seems like 9th August is the switchover date…

 

[elanshin]

Seems like 9th August is the switchover date…

Probably will believe it when we see the Max8s actually delivered. For all we know Boeing could run into another snag.

 

[AIRwin]

Seems like 9th August is the switchover date…

Should have made it 8/8 for the Max 8

 

[Digicola]

Should have made it 8/8 for the Max 8

Should have made it 28/06 so I wouldn’t have to fly on a -700

 

[Bagpuss]

Surprised this article (unless I missed it) hasn't been referenced :

Virgin Australia Uses 737s to Keep Tokyo Slots as Hedge for Future Longhaul Asia Return

Virgin Australia has emerged a much stronger airline from the Covid-19 pandemic than it was at the outset of the crisis. A court-led restructuring of

airlineweekly.com

Why then fly a 737 to Tokyo? It’s the slots, silly. Virgin Australia has one highly sought-after slot pair at Haneda airport. Rules governing the use of those slots — typically an airline must use a slot every 90 days or lose it — have been waived during the pandemic, but those waivers are scheduled to sunset at the end of March. June 28 happens to be right about 90 days later. Reacquiring a lost slot pair at Haneda, which Qantas would certainly jump for, could take years if it happened at all.

 

[Bagpuss]

The 737-700 appears to now be loaded on flights.

Also reflects there's economy seats mostly every day except a few days during the week of Monday 17th July and Monday 5th August.

 

[stm1sydney]

Surprised this article (unless I missed it) hasn't been referenced :

Virgin Australia Uses 737s to Keep Tokyo Slots as Hedge for Future Longhaul Asia Return

Virgin Australia has emerged a much stronger airline from the Covid-19 pandemic than it was at the outset of the crisis. A court-led restructuring of

airlineweekly.com

Why then fly a 737 to Tokyo? It’s the slots, silly. Virgin Australia has one highly sought-after slot pair at Haneda airport. Rules governing the use of those slots — typically an airline must use a slot every 90 days or lose it — have been waived during the pandemic, but those waivers are scheduled to sunset at the end of March. June 28 happens to be right about 90 days later. Reacquiring a lost slot pair at Haneda, which Qantas would certainly jump for, could take years if it happened at all.

Not sure if that specific article has been referenced but certainly the premise of it and your comment has been discussed at length and confirmed in this thread. But, to be fair, it is now 49 pages long.

 

[JasonK]

The slots were granted to Virgin pre-pandemic when the environment was different and VA had the planes to be able to fly this route. This was done in the interest of the consumer and providing fairer competition. I feel this is not the case currently as Virgin has been hogging this slot for years now without being able to do anything and the proposed service is not a great one from a consumer point of view (old/small plane, only from Cairns). Qantas would have made better use of this slot and they likely would have used it to provide daily services from MEL/BNE, or additional SYD services (likely at the expense of one of their less busier routes). Demand for travel to Japan is hot the at the moment.

Either way, I'm not being biased towards Qantas as I am actually booked on this route later this year to fly with Virgin, so let's see how it pans out by then...fingers crossed!

 

[JasonK]

Qantas were using both of their HND slots prior to the travel ban though and they restarted their Tokyo services as soon as travel to Japan became feasible earlier this year, so that's fair enough. If Virgin were serious about this they could have tried to get a plane or bring in the -700 earlier, regardless of their desire to use the MAX instead. It's clear that Virgin are only doing this as a last resort and waiting until the last minute before they launch services. If that deadline didn't exist, there is no way Virgin would be operating services from June. The only loser there is the consumer.

 

[justinbrett]

Still J7 available on the inaugural flight and lots of Y seats. J7 C5 D2 Y9 B9 W9 H9 K9 L9 R9 E9 O9 N9 V9 P8 Q5 T1 I0 S0 U0

I don't think it's selling well at all.

If you do a dummy booking on the VA website, the seat map can't be displayed. I reckon they will be blocking lots of seats off.

 

[HS-TQE]

Qantas were using both of their HND slots prior to the travel ban though and they restarted their Tokyo services as soon as travel to Japan became feasible earlier this year, so that's fair enough. If Virgin were serious about this they could have tried to get a plane or bring in the -700 earlier, regardless of their desire to use the MAX instead. It's clear that Virgin are only doing this as a last resort and waiting until the last minute before they launch services. If that deadline didn't exist, there is no way Virgin would be operating services from June. The only loser there is the consumer.

Also, consider that the CNS-HND is also part-subsidised by the Queensland taxpayers under the AAIF, which is the same part-subsidy arrangement for QF's BNE-HND.

If it wasn't for Premier Annastacia and the North Queensland Tourism bodies stumping up the money for VA to operate CNS-HND, there would be no doubt that Bain would've let the slot 'lapse' (lapse as in the slot automatically returning to the IASC for re-allocation).

 

[Digicola]

Qantas were using both of their HND slots prior to the travel ban though and they restarted their Tokyo services as soon as travel to Japan became feasible earlier this year, so that's fair enough.

Except:

A) No they didn’t, just as Virgin they were set to start operating from the 29th of March 2020 but things turned sour and they discontinued almost all intl flying before that date.

B) What counts as feasible? If VA could have launched HND at anytime then so could QF. Why wasn’t the second slot utilised for months? This argument really only stands if you shift the goal post accordingly. VA probably assessed that their feasibility bottom line was that they needed the MAX to operate profitably, is that not operating when feasible?

C) QF HND flights come at the expense of NRT flights. So its 1 for 1 capacity, no gain at all, if QF wanted to they could fly to NRT tomorrow. Even if VA flew an Ejet it would be creating new capacity in the market. The idea being VA just wouldn’t operate to TYO at all as without a HND slot they wouldn’t be able to viably compete against QF (and JL/NH) who would then have 3 HND slots. Now we can argue all we want about the validity of this but the facts are there, QF hasn’t increased capacity in the market and even if VA don’t operate to HND out of goodwill but because they are obliged to, then in the short run it is more beneficial to the flying public for very little long term loss.

 

[MooTime]

Except:

A) No they didn’t, just as Virgin they were set to start operating from the 29th of March 2020 but things turned sour and they discontinued almost all intl flying before that date.

B) What counts as feasible? If VA could have launched HND at anytime then so could QF. Why wasn’t the second slot utilised for months? This argument really only stands if you shift the goal post accordingly. VA probably assessed that their feasibility bottom line was that they needed the MAX to operate profitably, is that not operating when feasible?

C) QF HND flights come at the expense of NRT flights. So its 1 for 1 capacity, no gain at all, if QF wanted to they could fly to NRT tomorrow. Even if VA flew an Ejet it would be creating new capacity in the market. The idea being VA just wouldn’t operate to TYO at all as without a HND slot they wouldn’t be able to viably compete against QF (and JL/NH) who would then have 3 HND slots. Now we can argue all we want about the validity of this but the facts are there, QF hasn’t increased capacity in the market and even if VA don’t operate to HND out of goodwill but because they are obliged to, then in the short run it is more beneficial to the flying public for very little long term loss.

a) VA discountinued almost all flying from 29th March 2020....I'd safely say ALL their int flying, don't think they were the only one.

b) what is feasible is that the HND slot use it or lose it date was extended by Tokoyo airport or relevant parties, nothing to do with VA, maybe they requested it, but final call not VA's, if they didn't extend maybe VA would've used 700's earlier or just given slot back who knows, but the slot was extended. You say profitablility, isn't that what all airlines try to do on all routes??? (bar QF when head2head with Rex, they try to burn them to dispose of them)

c) bit of a ramble, I got no response.

 

[JasonK]

Jetstar operates to NRT (and to KIX), which is part of the Qantas group, so to be fair on Qantas, they are technically serving NRT as well for their more leisure oriented flights. Virgin could just as easily have also operated to NRT if they were serious about Tokyo flights and compete against Jetstar which is more akin to the service they are providing.

 

[Quickstatus]

QF hasn’t increased capacity in the market

The market you mean to Japan?
I'm not sure they can, they were/are operating at capacity. Soon after Covid, QF in its exuberance started putting as much seats flights back on their global flying schedule as the available aircrew and airframes would allow on paper - leading to the issues of terrible on time performance and cancellations until they backed off a bit

QF HND flights come at the expense of NRT flights

Not necessarily. The market is somewhat different.

 

[Mattg]

Still J7 available on the inaugural flight and lots of Y seats. J7 C5 D2 Y9 B9 W9 H9 K9 L9 R9 E9 O9 N9 V9 P8 Q5 T1 I0 S0 U0

I don't think it's selling well at all.

I wonder if they had not been selling the J seats on the inaugural flight until now, in order to reserve them for media, but have decided to now pull media activity around the launch so have just released those J seats for sale.

 

[justinbrett]

I wonder if they had not been selling the J seats on the inaugural flight until now, in order to reserve them for media, but have decided to now pull media activity around the launch so have just released those J seats for sale.

Probably couldn't afford the weight of the camera equipment