By Julie Johnsson | Japan Airlines has decided to keep its alliance
with long-time partner American Airlines and to turn down a competing
offering from Delta Air Lines, according to reports in the Japanese
media.

Chicago stood to lose service to Japan and Asia had JAL defected to
Delta, as experts until last week thought likely. Japan’s flag carrier
likely would have moved its daily non-stop flight from Tokyo’s Narita
Airport to a Delta hub.

Delta and its SkyTeam global alliance would have provided JAL with a far larger global network than American and its Oneworld partners, generated hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue per year.

But the partnership likely would have faced lengthy scrutiny by U.S. transportation and antitrust officials since it would have controlled more than half of the market for air travel across the northern Pacific, a point that American Airlines officials stressed publicly and in talks with JAL.

American, which uses Chicago as an international gateway, warned that it would be forced to sharply reduce its service if it severed ties with JAL, which provides connections to American passengers in Japan and other Asian destinations.