OREANDA-NEWS. Lufthansa is improving its services to Japan and will in future also be flying to Haneda Air­port. This vast and biggest Japanese airport to the south of Tokyo is only 14 kilometers from the city center and within easy reach from down-town in just 15 minutes by monorail. Being near to the city center makes the airport attractive, especially for business travelers and visitors to Tokyo. Moreover, Haneda Airport offers better onward flight options in the domestic route network operated by airline partner ANA. In future, Lufthansa passengers will have a choice of connecting flights to more than 40 Japanese destinations. The most important connections can also be booked as codeshare services with a Lufthansa flight number. City airport Haneda was previously reserved largely for Japanese airlines. Follow­ing the decision taken by the Japanese authorities to open Haneda Airport more for inter­national flights, and thanks to close cooperation with Japan’s biggest carrier, ANA, Lufthansa will now be flying to Japan’s busiest airport by passenger traffic and to ANA’s hub.

Lufthansa CEO and Chairman Christoph Franz said: “The inclusion of Haneda Airport in our flight schedules is for our passengers a tangible outcome of the strategy we pursue together in our strategic joint venture with our partner airline ANA. Not only that, it also distinctly improves and grows the services we offer in Japan through vastly better flight connections into the Japanese domestic network.”

President and CEO of ANA, Osamu Shinobe, said: “We are delighted to announce the expansion of our German network which, along with our joint venture with Lufthansa, will enhance our services to Germany and Europe as a whole. The new expanded network will enable us to offer our customers greater choice, connectivity and convenience in both Japanese and European markets.”

From 30 March 2014, Tokyo-Haneda will be served by Lufthansa non-stop, daily, from Frankfurt and Munich. The former destination airport Tokyo-Narita will stay in the route network and be served from Frankfurt through Osaka also from 30 March.

Simultaneously with Lufthansa, ANA is rearranging and expanding its connections between Japan and Germany at the start of the 2014 summer flight schedules. The Japa­nese airline will service Frankfurt in future twice a day from Tokyo-Haneda. Up to now ANA offered in its schedule one flight from Narita and another one from Haneda both to Frank­furt. The Munich flight also will be serviced out of Haneda in the future.

New in the ANA timetable are flights to Dusseldorf from Tokyo’s Narita Airport, which will be operated by a Boeing 787 from 30 March 2014. This non-stop route will connect the important Japanese community living in Germany with its home country.