Is this different than the Pan Am and UAL transaction? I know NW flies some flights from NRT to Nagoya and onto Saipan (flight 77 I believe), etc, but those flights do NOT have paying passengers deplaning in Nagoya. NWA is really not a domestic passenger airline in Japan as you have stated. You guys can stop in Nagoya on the way to another point, but not take passengers between those domestic cities. UAL also has a NRT base that can connect passengers to other Asian cities, and they purchased the rights from Pan Am and changed the name. Can you or Oscam show me the difference between the Pan Am and United transaction and possible Delta and NW transaction and why a name transfer could be done with the first but not the second?
From my understanding the incumbant rights are transferrable by the US government to any USA Flag carrier, and the slots are held by the foreign government. Slots can be transferred at will, as Delta did to Fedex back in 2002 when they gave up their slots they initially used for PDX--NRT. The Japanese government approved that deal, and probably would approve others.
As I said, Occam has the low down. When I said "domestic", I didn't mean as in intra-Japan, but rather NWA is treated as a Japanese airline when it comes to carrying passengers beyond NRT. NWA may sell tickets and provide service between Japan and the points they serve in the rest of Asia that does NOT involve the carrage to/from/through the US.
That would be like British Airways flying from LAX to NRT, and selling tickets to US passengers out of LAX. This type of flying is generally not permitted, which makes the NWA rights unique, and not the same as simply picking up pax in the US, then transiting a hub to a 3rd destination.
Typically what you said is true for most international route swaps/purchases, but the NWA rights were arranged under a seperate set of treaties that were negotiated as a result of NWA assisting in the start up of JAL at the end of WWII. The same rules simply do not apply because of this.
Nu