In October 2020, Star Alliance member airline All Nippon Airways announced plans to launch a new long haul airline subsidiary. The company has today revealed a lot more information, including its first route, pricing, and more. Let’s go over all the details.
Continue reading: AirJapan, ANA’s New Boeing 787 Low Cost Carrier
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I have to admit, this airline actually sounds nice. The pricing is super competitive and nobody could doubt that service on a Japanese carrier could be anything but flawless. I‘d fly them in a heartbeat.
What about mileage earning and redemption opportunities? I suspect it won’t be part of *A?
@ Maxi -- Correct, it won't be part of Star Alliance, and there's no mention yet of mileage earning with ANA Mileage Club (though I imagine it might still qualify?).
More than 4 hours without IFE is tough. Not everyone flies with an iPad or a laptop.
Agree that they're bringing value to the market, especially considering the competition in this market: ZIPAIR which has less legroom in economy, and Thai Air Asia X with the awful 9-abreast A333. Though I'll be interested in seeing how this new airline fit in with Peach (ANA's other LCC) and the "old" Air Japan. Hopefully this doesn't come at the expense of "old" Air Japan frequencies (which is a *A affiliate, has decent award availability, and provides a lot of the regional connectivity from NRT).
Will this replace ANA flights on some routes? We have HND-SGN and SIN-NRT planned for Feb/Mar. Hope we still get our lay flat seats.
@Ben. Yes ANA already has Air Japan. And it is the same company that is going to operate these flights. The current Air Japan has the IATA code NQ, and the new flights to Bangkok will be NQ1/2. To make things easier and quicker, ANA is using an existing AOC and experience with operating flights.
It will cause a lot of confusion, as there will still be ANA flights operated by Air Japan, which will be in full ANA livery and full ANA service. And then there will be Air Japan LCC flights.
Unlikely. It will be additional capacity on existing routes to capture a segment of the market that is not profitable for main line. Or new routes that are more leisure oriented.
So, Ben, most importantly, since they’re not part of *A, there’s no threat of winding up on an AirJapan flight when redeeming miles for a NH itinerary?
Small spelling error, entertainmnent = entertainment. Btw I use Grammarly’s free extension for good spell checking with a little bit of grammar help too.
They still have time to redesign the uniforms for both genders before launching the flights. The FAs look like kung-fu apprentices. Standard travels emphasize the destinations, not the journeys. If the flight is less than ten hours, we can suck it up in exchange for competitive fares and pleasant services.
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32 inches for a seat in economy is better than most full service companies and considering that meals in economy are almost always terrible anyway so I would rather fly with them with the nice leg length and the cheaper price and give up a meal you can bring from home
remember that the Japanese government's stated goal is to move all premium carrier Tokyo longhaul international routes to Haneda and turn Narita into a low cost carrier airport - somewhat akin to the relationship between Heathrow and Gatwick.
They have so far opened just enough capacity and created slot controls at HND to allow most of the longest haul premium/legacy flights to operate from HND but not LCCs and also not enough for Delta to move its Narita hub; DL had to either split its Tokyo operations or end its hub and it chose the latter and is sending connecting traffic over Seoul and Korean.
The opening of ANA and JAL's widebody LCCs is part of that process. SE Asia is so big of a market that ANA and JAL are willing to compete w/ their own LCCs out of NRT but likely will not in the future. At some point, Air Japan etc will fly longhaul international routes of which the 787 is capable of doing.
Note also that the 787-8 is a high CASM aircraft which ANA would prefer to transfer to Air Japan and use for high density operations.
At some point, HND will open further and Air Japan is likely to be ANA's remaining longhaul presence at NRT.
Having lived and also traveled to Japan quite frequently, there's been occassions where we've had to fly Peach airline (a domestic discount airline) to reach certain locations.
Have to say, Japan does discount airlines pretty good. Have also flown domestic first in JAL and ANA and those are really nice too.
Looking at the pricing and the details, it seems like a good option.
I would've liked them to have at least a few premium seats though...
As flagged by others, Air Japan and Peach (also owned by ANA) risk cannibalizing each other for a similar customer base with inevitably overlapping routes. How the parent rationalizes capacity and service will be interesting to watch as it evolves.
I get that Japan is quite conservative but the uniforms are just awful - pricing is very good though
The name is very poorly chosen. Air Japan and AirJapan will be confused by most. Consider some other close names but not as close. Air Kenya and Kenya Airways or Air China and China Airlines. Also, if the new airline will be code shared with ANA then it would be possible to have Star Alliance benefits. Consider some of the subsidiaries of Air China and China Eastern in China, for example. I wonder the pricing for the extras if separately and if it would be the same price as a package. That would count to the credit card rebates that many premium cards provide.
Even if there is a codeshare with ANA, Star Alliance traditionally operates based on operating carrier. Just like Aegean/Olympic, Thai/Thai Smile, Singapore/SilkAir, etc. I wouldn't expect Star Gold benefits to transfer over to Air Japan, unless maybe if you have status from ANA or your airline's program negotiates specifically with ANA for it. (I'm aware that SilkAir is no more, and that Thai Smile is being integrated back into Thai, but those are just examples.)
Yes a lot more traffic at HND but what sucks is now in the city of Tokyo there are planes flying pretty low all the time on their landing at HND. There used to be no planes flying over Tokyo. Great if you love plane sporting but awfulmof you want to enjoy your life.
There is no reason to expand traffic at HND. Narita is perfectly fine and only takes a hour to get to by but or train or a $300 taxi ride.
Most important... What's the leg space? Most of the Chinese airlines have 28" of space. If this is the case this is a "no-go" for me. I was thinking that if there is leg space, I can buy two tickets on a o/w flight (6hrs 30min HND to BKK) and have an empty seat next to me. Still a bargain @ $330 each way!
It is not all the time, it is in very limited periods that the planes come in over central Tokyo, and compared to the noise levels of the city in general, and the politicians (and right wing nutcases) with loudspeakers in specific it is really nothing. I live and work under some of the main corridors, and while there are often politicians at the stations having loud speaches about the noise pollution from the planes, they don't seem to appreciate the irony of the fact that they are for worse noise pollution. I did once ask one of the people passing the flyers out for a guy holding an anti Haneda speach, if they paid attention to the fact that they made far more noise than the planes. They were not amused.....
It is not a new airline per se. It is the same Air Japan operating on behalf of ANA and that will be operating the new LCC flights. There will be zero Star Alliance benefits, and if we go by JAL and Zip Air, there is very little likelihood that there will be any benefits for ANA elite members.
Qantas still does daily flights from MEL and BNE to NRT because they’ve only got 2 slots for HND which is exclusively for their flights to SYD.
Wonder if this new carrier would consider flights from NRT to tourist destinations in Australia such as Cairns and Gold Coast?
Would be perfect to fill the void left by Jetstars cancelation of their OOL to NRT service.
