LAX to Lose 10 Nonstop Tokyo-L.A. Flights a Week

With Japanese leisure travel to Southern California dropping as a consequence of Asia’s economic meltdown, Los Angeles International Airport is set to lose 10 nonstop flights a week from Tokyo beginning next week.

Japan is Southern California’s No. 1 source of foreign visitors, but local tourism officials expect 6% fewer Japanese sightseers to vacation in the region this year given their country’s ongoing economic and banking woes.

The drop in demand has left carriers such as Japan Airlines, or JAL, and United Airlines shuffling their flight plans to capitalize on potentially more lucrative routes.

Next Friday, JAL will reroute two of its 15 weekly Tokyo-Los Angeles nonstop flights to Las Vegas, making it the first Asian carrier to offer regularly scheduled service to the gambling mecca. The carrier will divert a third LAX-bound flight to Las Vegas beginning in November.

JAL’s return flights from Las Vegas to Tokyo will stop at LAX. Many passengers will get off and vacation in Southern California before returning to Tokyo, predicted Michael Sun, JAL regional sales manager in Los Angeles.

In spite of Japan’s ongoing economic woes, Japanese demand for travel to Las Vegas has continued to grow, albeit slowly, in recent months.

For its part, United plans to cut in half its 14 weekly nonstop flights from Tokyo to LAX and divert seven flights to Seattle starting Oct. 4. These flights will be the first Tokyo-Seattle nonstop flights by United in nearly a decade. The reshuffling will mean United’s current twice-daily service from Tokyo to LAX will be pared back to once a day.

“The main impact [of the Asian crisis] has been in the leisure market, which isn’t surprising to anyone,” United spokesman Andy Plews said.

Michael Collins, executive vice president of the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau, called the effect of the lost flights “significant but by no means catastrophic.”

With 60,000 fewer Japanese tourists expected to visit Southern California this year than last year, the region is predicted to lose $600 million in revenue, according to studies by local economists.

“Undeniably it has an impact,” Collins said. “But as long as domestic travel demand continues to be as strong as it is, it is going to mask the weaknesses from other markets.”

Collins said leisure travel to Los Angeles from within the United States, along with robust business travel, has helped keep occupancy rates at area hotels around 75%. It also has allowed hotels to push room rates 10% higher this year, he said.

Despite the flight reductions, Collins noted, LAX will still accommodate at least 10 daily nonstop flights from Tokyo, transporting an average of 24,000 passengers a week. “That is still a considerable number,” he said.

Phil Depoian, an LAX deputy executive director, said he doesn’t expect the JAL and United reductions to touch off other reroutings, especially given the airport’s important role as a port of entry for international cargo, much of which is carried in the holds of passenger planes.

“Even if they’re flying the planes half-full, they are making money with the cargo they are carrying in their bellies,” Depoian said.

But for United Airlines, Tokyo passenger levels to Los Angeles no longer warranted twice-daily service, company spokesman Plews said. “We felt we could meet the demand in L.A. with one daily trip.”

Plews also said that moves earlier this year by United to double nonstop flights between Chicago and Tokyo meant fewer travelers needed to use LAX to cross the Pacific.

Seattle was chosen as a new destination for flights from Tokyo, Plews said, as part of the carrier’s efforts to focus more resources on business travel.

As for JAL, Sun said the carrier had been eyeing Las Vegas as a destination for the last few years as Japanese tourism rates to the city have surged.

“In the past six to eight years the demand to go to Las Vegas has been increasing quite a bit,” Sun said. “Las Vegas started to promote itself as a theme park, and it became a very attractive destination for the Japanese.”

Despite Japan’s economic downturn, the country still provides the largest bloc of overseas visitors to Las Vegas, said Rob Powers, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority. And these numbers remain high, he said. “We have not seen any precipitous decline in the number of Japanese tourists coming here.”

Las Vegas tourism officials are counting on Japan and other foreign countries to help fill roughly 20,000 new hotel rooms scheduled to be unveiled over the next two years. For the first time in nearly a decade, Vegas’ phenomenal growth has slowed due in part to the proliferation of gambling venues in other states.

Sun said part of the impetus for the new service were reports that many JAL passengers to Los Angeles were immediately catching connecting flights to Las Vegas.

“In making [Las Vegas} a nonstop we’re making it more convenient, and by making it more convenient, we’re hoping to generate more traffic,” he said.

JAL, Japan’s largest airline, has been struggling to break even for the last six years. Like many Asian carriers, it has been hit with declining ticket sales caused by Asia’s slump.