This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@juno.com. With Pageantry and Hope, United Reopens Tokyo Hub January 21, 2003 By KEN BELSON with MICHELINE MAYNARD NARITA, Japan, Jan. 20 - With its operations under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, United Airlines needs all the good fortune it can get. So it chose the luckiest day of the Japanese calendar for a ceremony today for the official opening of its revamped terminal at Narita Airport outside Tokyo, long an unavoidable ordeal for business travelers because of its distant location, crowded conditions and long lines. The terminal, rebuilt at a cost of $11 million, features touches like an antique Edo era lantern in the business-class lounge and a glass elevator that ascends to a first-class lounge with skylights. But United considers the renovation an important part of a much more ambitious project than simple passenger comfort: giving it a competitive weapon at Tokyo, the lucrative gateway to Asia. Northwest, with 63 scheduled flights, is the No. 1 airline linking the United States and Narita, and United, with 56, is No. 3. Along with the second-ranking Japan Airlines, they are locked in a fierce battle for the international passenger. United will not have a corner on newness for long. In April, Northwest plans to dedicate its own overhauled terminal to keep up pressure on United for the Asia traveler's revenue. Such efforts are the minimum necessary to hang on to ever-scarcer business travelers headed for Asia, said Kevin P. Mitchell, president of the Business Travel Coalition, which represents corporate travel departments and business fliers. "People going to Narita or through Narita are pretty high-end business travelers" because of the high fares and scarce discounts on such travel to Japan, Mr. Mitchell said. "They are used to the best, and they require the best because of the strains from that long kind of business travel." Tokyo is 6,750 air miles from New York, and a nonstop flight takes just under 14 hours. And United does not intend to yield a single Pacific route seat without a fight, the airline's chief executive, Glenn F. Tilton, said today in the lounge's new lobby, which was bathed in sunlight through a glass roof. "This symbolizes in many ways our commitment to the Asia-Pacific region," said Mr. Tilton, who put on a traditional short jacket called a happi coat to join the United States ambassador to Japan, Howard H. Baker Jr., in swinging small wooden sledgehammers to crack open two ceremonial kegs of sake in honor of the terminal's opening. (The festivities started 15 minutes late, a faux pas in a country known for promptness.) Mr. Tilton said United's Pacific routes represented one-fifth of its business in 2002. Landing slots at Narita are among the most sought after in the world, and United's Asian operations were deemed so valuable that the airline clung to them even as it ran dangerously short of cash last year, refusing to sell routes that carriers like Pan Am had been forced to unload a decade or so earlier. "It's a very important market for our future expansion," said Mr. Tilton, who is mapping United's strategy for emerging from bankruptcy some time next year. Eventually, that will mean sharing this new terminal at Narita with its Star Alliance partners, including All Nippon Airways, which will move its operations from elsewhere at the airport in 2005. For the present, though, United's quest for dominance at Narita is being fiercely opposed by Northwest, which said in December that it offered 13 percent more flights a week from the United States than its rival and had 19 percent more seats. Further, Northwest is transforming Narita into a hub of its Asia-Pacific operations, serving South Korea, China and elsewhere with Airbus 320 jets. "We can get to you to virtually every major Pacific Rim city, and to two cities inland," said Philip C. Haan, Northwest's executive vice president for international sales and information services. United is flying primarily to major Asian cities like Beijing, Seoul and Singapore, using wide-bodied Boeing 747 or 777 jets. "It's difficult to justify using those jets to secondary cities," said Graham Atkinson, United's executive vice president for international operations. That is where United's code-sharing agreements with partners like All Nippon and Thai Airways come into play, Mr. Atkinson said. The airline does not need to add smaller cities to its route system because its partners can offer service. For many passengers, just getting to Narita from Tokyo, through seemingly endless traffic snarls, can take as long as a flight from Narita to Beijing or Seoul. Clearing security and checking bags in the cramped spaces allotted to the airlines is another headache, followed by a long walk to the waiting area. Passengers who made it to the United or Northwest lounges found little to be cheery about there - just a place to sit and perhaps something to drink. Until now, those lounges have lacked the amenities that are becoming commonplace at airports like Kennedy, Heathrow and at Frankfurt, where British Airways, Continental Airlines and Lufthansa all have vastly improved their facilities, offering perks ranging from shower stalls and Champagne to free Internet access and sleeper chairs. At United's terminal here, passengers are divided among those whose trips originate in Japan, those traveling through the airport and those arriving from the United States, said Mark Schwab, vice president for the Pacific-North region. Unfortunately, the new terminal does not reduce the extended waiting time required to get through immigration, which for a plane arriving from America can be two hours. But the refurbished terminal, developed by the Seattle Design Group, will at least make layover and departure waits more tolerable. United took the chairs and other furniture from all its lounges at Narita and put it into a single two-story lounge, having to buy only 20 new chairs. Five check-in counters were decorated for the opening ceremony with striking vases of irises, a favorite flower here. The 700-seat, main-floor business- class lounge is decorated in a Japanese theme, with deep gray speckled carpets, paper lantern lamps and a gold screen in one corner with carp, a sign of good luck. There are telephones placed every two to three seats, with free local calls and two big television screens. Departure boards are placed in the food and beverage service areas areas to help ensure that passengers do not miss their flights. The upstairs first-class lounge is roomier, and like the lower-level lounge, has plenty of desk space with phone jacks and electrical outlets, along with high-speed Internet connections. There are 17 free shower suites complete with Molton Brown toiletries, including ginseng shower gel. As if to exhort travelers to victory, the men's bathroom is decorated with large pictures of grand champion sumo wrestlers. Such splendor might seem a bit out of place for an airline whose every action now comes under the scrutiny of a Chicago bankruptcy judge. But Mr. Mitchell said the terminal was an important tool in United's effort to keep passengers from defecting to Northwest and other carriers. "They have to keep improving the value of their assets or get out of them," he said. "That's where they are today." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/21/business/worldbusiness/21NARI.html?ex=1044158963&ei=1&en=f3cf067ad5779b71 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company