U.S., Japan in New Row Over Landing Rights : Airlines: JAL’s request to inaugurate a route between Sendai and Honolulu sparked the latest dispute in an ongoing quarrel over a 1952 treaty.

A U.S.-Japan dispute over air service rights is heating up as Tokyo seeks changes in what it views as an unfair 1952 agreement and American carriers try to expand Pacific Rim services under the old rules.

The latest point of friction comes from a Japan Airlines request to inaugurate a route between the northern city of Sendai and Honolulu beginning last Thursday. The U.S. Department of Transportation declined to take any action on the route request before Thursday, though it did give last-minute, one-time approval for a charter flight to carry the 275 passengers who had already booked tickets.

Matsuo Toshimitsu, president of Japan Airlines, described Washington’s reluctance to approve the new service as “extremely regrettable.”

The quarrel then escalated. The U.S. had previously decided that the licenses for transpacific flights of three Japanese airlines would be extended only half a year at a time, rather than a full year, as has been the practice. Japan’s Transport Ministry responded Friday by announcing the same treatment for U.S. airlines.

At the root of the controversy is a 42-year-old civil aviation agreement--drawn up at a time when Japan did not have its own international airline--that allows U.S. carriers flying to Japan to pick up passengers for destinations in Southeast Asia and Australia and permits Japanese carriers to fly from the United States to South America.

In recent years, economic growth in Southeast Asia has made these routes extremely lucrative for U.S. airlines, which carry a high percentage of passengers picked up in Japan, while the onward flights to South America are of much less value to the Japanese.

Tokyo has made efforts at least since 1975 to get the agreement changed, but Washington has steadfastly refused. Now, however, Japan may have new leverage with the scheduled opening in September of Kansai Airport, a large facility serving the Osaka area that will be Japan’s first 24-hour airport.

Several U.S. carriers would like to expand their operations into Osaka once the airport opens, but Japan has refused to approve any increases outside the context of broader negotiations on revising the 1952 agreement.

“The common view in Japan is (that) the U.S. carriers have enough already, and they keep wanting more, and it’s about time this was changed,” said Geoffrey Tudor, a Japan Airlines spokesman in Tokyo.

U.S. carriers hold about 70% of the transpacific market, even though about 85% of the passengers on these routes are Japanese, Tudor said. At Narita International Airport, the key facility serving Tokyo, U.S. carriers hold slots for about 800 arrivals or departures, with about 500 of these used for flights to or from the United States and 300 for flights to or from destinations beyond Japan, he said.

By contrast, he said, Japanese carriers have about 850 slots, with 300 used for U.S. flights and the rest for their connections to the rest of the world.

Tudor said that in the Japanese view, these statistics show that U.S. airlines are making an unreasonably large number of flights that are not between the United States and Japan.

But U.S. carriers such as United Airlines and Federal Express, a provider of freight services, feel they have the right to more flights beyond Japan than Tokyo allows.

“We have been trying to exercise our right to fly from New York to Narita with a through service to Sydney,” said James C. Brennan, a Tokyo-based vice president for United Airlines. “That’s something we . . . desire to do. It’s somewhere embedded in those discussions between the two governments.”

The airline controversy has no direct connection to other bilateral trade disputes, but disagreements over how the two governments should respond to Japan’s huge trade surplus with the United States--which hit $59.3 billion last year--may affect the atmosphere for talks.

Another factor could be the great financial pressure many airlines face, due partly to overcapacity and price wars. Japan Airlines expects a loss of about $282 million for the fiscal year that ends March 31. It has announced plans to cut 5,000 jobs over the next four years.

Susumu Yamaji, chairman of Japan Airlines, recently told reporters that there should be a new bilateral agreement that “reflects today’s conditions instead of the positions of 40 years ago.”