Lufthansa diverts flights from Tokyo

Germany’s Lufthansa airline became the first major European carrier Tuesday to announce that its daily flights to Tokyo will be diverted due to huge delays at the city’s main international airport.

Competitors British Airways, Air France, Swiss and Alitalia said their flights to the Japanese capital were currently operating as scheduled, but cautioned that the situation in the country was being closely monitored and advised customers to check the status of their flights before leaving for the airport.

Lufthansa’s daily flight from Frankfurt to Tokyo will be diverted to Nagoya and the flights from Munich will be diverted to Osaka at least through Sunday, airline spokesman Thomas Jachnow said.

The flight from Frankfurt to Tokyo is usually operated with an A380 superjumbo, but the airline is now using a smaller A340-600 with a capacity of about 400. That is about 120 less than the A380, but "the capacity at the moment still seems to be sufficient," he added.

Tuesday’s flights were both expected to return to Germany several hours late due to delays and other logistical problems at Tokyo’s Narita airport. "From the other cities we’ll be able to offer a more stable flight schedule, which is also a preventive measure," Jachnow said.

Tokyo’s main international hub Narita lies some 40 miles (65 kilometres) northeast of the city centre, close to a zone battered by a Tsunami following Friday’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake that also set in motion a dreadful series of failures and explosions at a nuclear power plant.

This weekend, Lufthansa started to check planes returning from Tokyo for excessive levels of radiation, but none was detected.

British Airways said it is keeping the situation in Japan under review and customers with tickets to travel before or on March 19 have the opportunity to change their travel date or destination.

France’s travel agent association CETO announced Tuesday it is extending its freeze on travel to Japan from March 20 through March 31.

Air France has said it continues to fly into and out of Narita airport twice a day, while Italy’s Alitalia said it is maintaining flights to Tokyo and Osaka, but added passengers booked to or from Japan through March 31 can change their tickets without surcharge.

Switzerland’s Swiss International Air Lines said it has introduced an interim stop in Hong Kong for its daily flight from Zurich to Tokyo to be able to react more quickly to the situation in Japan and shorten ground time in the Japanese capital.

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Angela Charlton in Paris, Jane Wardell in London, John Heilprin in Geneva, Alessandra Rizzo in Rome contributed to this report.