Delta restarts flights from MSP to Tokyo

Flights from the Twin Cities to Tokyo are officially back.

Delta Air Lines relaunched service from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) to Tokyo-Haneda Airport on Saturday after a three-year suspension because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To celebrate that nonstop route resuming, officials from Delta and the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), which operates MSP, gathered Monday morning.

“Tokyo is one of MSP’s legacy international destinations, with service that goes back decades,” Brian Ryks, the CEO of the MAC, said in a statement. “We’re thrilled Delta is bringing back these daily flights to continue to meet the strong passenger and business demand between the upper Midwest and Japan.”

The resumption of the flight comes after several other high-profile international routes in the past year, including London and Seoul.

With the MSP to Toyko service restarted, airport officials say MSP now has 90% of its pre-pandemic international routes back.

“We’re thankful that travel restrictions continue to lessen, creating more opportunities for international travel, especially to Japan,” Rick King, chair of the MAC, said. “The return of the Tokyo route fully restores service to Asia to pre-pandemic levels and supports the important leisure and business connections this brings to our region.”

Delta is MSP’s largest global carrier and operates more than 290 peak-day flights to 115 destinations this month.