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Continental cuts
isle-Tokyo flights

The airline says it wasn't
able to get enough landing
slots at Narita Airport
to make it viable

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Continental Airlines Inc. said today it will suspend its Honolulu-Tokyo direct service April 3 and doesn't expect to resume the service until it can get more landing times at Tokyo's Narita Airport.

Continental runs a McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 widebody aircraft on the route three times a week.

That's not enough frequency to be economically viable, said Sarah Anthony, a spokeswoman at Continental's headquarters in Houston.

"The (landing) times are simply not available. If they were available, we would be flying it daily," she said.

Anthony said three times a week doesn't make it in competition with such carriers as Japan Airlines Co., which has scehduled four flights a day for April and sometimes five, or U.S. carries Northwest Airlines Corp. with two flights a day and UAL Corp.'s daily United Airlines service.

She said the service has been temporarily suspended and she couldn't say when it will resume, although Continental hopes it will be "in the near future, as opposed to the distant future."

Meanwhile, it is still possible to make daily connections on Continental's Honolulu-Guam route and Continental has several daily mainland-Tokyo direct services, she said.