More flights and new routes being added at Tokyo’s most convenient airport.

There are two international airports in the Tokyo area, Narita and Haneda. Given the choice, though, just about any traveler would prefer their flight to be going through Haneda. That’s because Haneda is actually located within the Tokyo city limits, just a half-hour train ride from the Yamanote loop line that marks the city center. Narita, on the other hand, is actually in Chiba Prefecture, Tokyo’s neighbor to the east, requiring a full hour to get to downtown Tokyo on a train that costs more than 10 times as much as the ride from Haneda, and if you can’t catch the express, the Narita-to-downtown ride will take you nearly two hours.

So it’s good news for travelers that Delta has just announced that it’s not only increasing its number of direct flights between Haneda and the U.S., but even adding a new route, as it expects significant increases in passenger numbers between the two countries to increase before the end of the year.

Delta’s press release cites “anticipation of relaxed travel restrictions” as the reason why it will be resuming non-stop flights between Haneda and Los Angele’s LAX. Starting October 31, Delta will be operating three flights a week along the route, with departures from LAX at 9:45 a.m. on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays and arriving the next day at 3:10 p.m. in Japan, and flights departing Haneda at 4:50 p.m. on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and arriving at 10 a.m. the same day.

▼ Flying from Japan to California is about as close as humanity has gotten so far to time travel.

On December 1 Delta will begin operating the Haneda-Los Angeles flights every day. Frequency bumps are coming even sooner for the airline’s already-in-operation flights between Haneda and Seattle, Detroit, and Atlanta, which will go daily from October 30. Finally, on December 2, a new Haneda-Honolulu route will begin service, with flights every day.

While Delta hasn’t given any reason more specific than “anticipation of relaxed travel restrictions,” it’s worth noting that Japanese citizens and residents can already travel more or less freely between Japan and the U.S., which suggests that Delta is expecting movement on the long-awaited loosening of restrictions on inbound foreign travelers into Japan before the year is done.

Source: PR Times via IT Media
Top image: PR Times
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’d like to thank his parents for the many, many times they’ve dropped him off or picked him up at LAX since he started thinking “Hey, maybe I should go to Japan.”