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Tourism
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2000-09-13 00:12:00-04
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Most US Asia Bound Travelers prefer to bypass Japan
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'Open skies' policies adopted by many countries and new aircraft may change flight policies, but for now most flights go through expensive Japan
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Would you enjoy a flight stopover in Tokyo? No, according to two-thirds of the passengers from the United States to Asia, but they have no other choice as 80% of the Trans-Pacific flights stop in Japan, according to a report by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The Japan bottleneck is due to the fact that the domestic hubs of most US airlines are linked to very few destinations on a non-stop flight basis. Most flights originating from the US are from New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. However, with the adoption of 'open skies' policies by many Asian countries, flight patterns could be changing. Open-skies agreements have been signed between the United States and the following countries: Brunei, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. Along with the new open skies policies, new aircraft, designed for longer range will hasten changes. New aircraft coming on line include longer-range derivatives of the B777 and the Airbus A340. These planes will open the Pacific market to more non-stop flights. Boeing predicts that by 2019, B777s and A340s will be operating in over 100 'city pairs' and account for more than 40% of all flights in the Trans-Pacific. Almost half the 'city pairs' they serve will be in markets that have non-stop services today. They include Atlanta-Seoul, Dallas-Nagoya, Washington D.C.-Hong Kong, Los Angeles-Bangkok, Detroit-Guangzhou, Chicago-Beijing and Dallas-Shanghai.
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