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ANA announced to relaunch its low cost subsidiary AirAsia Japan, following the end of the partnership with AirAsia. The new airline will carry a new name which will be unveiled this month.
TOKYO – AirAsia Japan is bidding its farewell to its customers but it will quickly be reborn under a new name according to its major shareholder, All Nippon Airways. While keeping the Air Operation Certificate and the staff, the future low cost carrier will start from scratch. New aircraft will be necessary as the current fleet has been leased from AirAsia. The booking system is also property of AirAsia and ANA will have to replace it by another LCA- friendly booking engine.
AirAsia Japan is due to officially dissolved by the end of October with the start of the IATA winter schedule 2013-14. Its successor is then ready to take over by December. Operations at the current AirAsia Japan will start to get reduced from September as the total number of aircraft will go down from 4 to 3. First to be closed will be the new Nagoya base with its four daily flights to Fukuoka, Sapporo and Seoul. Tokyo Narita will lose from October 1st its flight to Okinawa and loses two daily frequencies to Sapporo. Before the total shutdown, the airline will continue to offer seven daily operations to Busan, Fukuoka, Seoul, Sapporo and Taipei. AirAsia Japan was serving a total of 14 daily services offering some 35,000 weekly seats.
All Nippon Airways meanwhile rejected the idea of merging the new operation with its other low cost affiliate Peach, based in Osaka Kansai. The airline is due to publish its new LCC brand by the end of the month, then the new schedule by September as well as giving details on the number of aircraft it will put into its new business. The future carrier should then take off from Narita by the end of December 2013. Only one thing has been confirmed: the new airline’s brand concept will be: “Make leisure time valuable time”.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
