Who is Best Punctual Airliner in Domestic Network in Japan?

定時運航率で見る日本のエアラインのパフォーマンス

The Editor

October 14, 2019

Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has released FY2018 data on punctual departure performance records.

Japanese fiscal year covers April to March.

Accordingly, the list below shows the performance rate compiled from April 2018 to March 2019 by respective carriers. For your information, Japan Airlines in the following data includes JAL’s affiliates of J Air and Hokkaido Air Systems while ANA data also includes ANA Wings. 

Punctuality departure performance by definition means all schedule flights that could depart within 15 minutes of the schedules. However, MLIT data only covers those aircraft with 100 or more seats.

Punctual performance of carries by rank

(Unit: %, parenthesis means FY2017 data)

1st SKYMARK　 93.91 (93.06)

2nd STARFLIER 93.88 （89.86）

3rd Air Do 90.76   (90.06)

4th ANA 90.51 (88.52)

5th JAL 89.91 (90.01)

6 AirAsia Japan 88.63 (90.42)

7 Solaseed Air 87.16 (87.75)

8 Spring Japan 85.08 (83.32)

9 Peach 82.61 (79.17)

10 Jet Star Japan 81.58 (85.17)

11 Japan Trans Ocean 80.39 (83.90)

12 Vanila Air 79.33 (80.94)

I will be pleased if you could refer to the above data when you plan domestic flight in Japan next time.

ANA-Toyota Boshoku Win 2019 Good Design Award for Cabin Passenger Seat

ANA-Toyota Boshoku Joint Designed Passenger Seat Awarded as ‘Good Design’

A new seat for domestic economy class jointly developed by ANA and Toyota Boshoku.

A newly designed passenger seat by ANA and Toyota Boshoku, a major car interior specialized firm as a Toyota Motor group, won the ‘2019 Good Design Award.’ The seat is for domestic routes and ANA will introduce the seats from Fall, 2019.

The winning seat is designed to accommodate any physiques and features of higher convenience for passengers while the slim seat design is intended to give more openness in the cabin. 

Annual Good Desing Award is now a global design competition with the participation of companies and organizations in and out of Japan for better design applications for social challenges. Its icon of ‘G mark’ is accepted as a symbol of excellent designs.　The designs reflect know-how of both ANA as experienced carrier and Toyota Boshoku for manufacturing quality it earned during decades of car seats for automobiles.

SKYMARK will launch NARITA-SAIPAN flights within this year

SKYMARK Extends its Wings Out of Japan: Its first international service is Narita-Saipan

September 24, 2019

The editor

Skymark, the third-largest airline in Japan, formally announced its plans to launch Narita-Sapan, the first scheduled international flight for the once-bankrupt airline.

  Skymark already operated chartered flights to Saipan in Mach, then followed by August and September while studying of launching scheduled flight service to the island destination, once a popular spot for Japanese travelers but now no JAL and ANA service is available.

   However, Skymark will launch its scheduled flight between Narita and Saipan starting sometime this year as daily service.

   At the same time, the airline will start domestic flight of Narita-Chubu (Nagoya) to attract those Japanese tourists in central Japan to Saipan desitnaion.

   Skymark once envisioned to launch Narita-New York line with its planned purchasing of A380s. However, the compnay soon filed bankruptcy and its expansion of network beyond Japanese borders became a pie in the sky.

   The airline has only operated scheduled passenger flights in the domestic network.

   As of today, there is no direct flight from Japan to Saipan. Japan Airlines ceased its flights in 2005.  Delta Airlines also finished passenger flights from Japan in May 2018 and Saipan has become a distant destination without direct flight service from Japan. Saipan may get the attention of those leisure tourists from japan once again.

   Skymark will announce details of the flight schedule later.

JAL's New Long-haul LCC is named ZIPAIR Tokyo

March 8) Japan Airlines’s newly launched low-cost carrier (LCC) subsidiary announced its corporate name and business plans on Friday.

According to TBL, a preparatory corporation before launching carrier service, it is called ZIPAIR Tokyo and hoping to start regular flight services from Tokyo Narita to Bangkok and Seoul as early as mid-2020, just before Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic games.

The new airliner will start flight services with two Boeing 787-8s leased from Japan Airlines.

ZIPAIR wishes to enter Narita to US west coast destinations as early as 2021.

Destinations of Bangkok and Seoul were selected as high traffic routes connecting with Japan.

However, as more LCCs and legacy airlines are operating on the same routes, ZIPAIR will appeal with half the price of legacy airlines and more spacious cabin for passengers to differentiate with them.

Japan Startts Collection of Departure Tax at Airport

Tips for Travelers to Japan: Pay Departure Tax At Airports, Effective from January 7, 2019

Japan introduced a departure tax on Monday, collecting 1,000 yen (about USD $9.2) per head from people leaving the country by aircraft or ship, regardless of their nationalities.

The tax is added to airfares or ship fares. Revenues from this tax are intended for measures to accept more visitors from abroad, as the government aims to make Japan a tourism-oriented country.

The government estimates departure tax revenue at 6 billion yen in fiscal 2018 through March and 50 billion yen in fiscal 2019.

Those who to leave Japan within 24 hours after their transit entry, as well as children under the age of two, are exempted from the departure tax.

The levy is not imposed as well on those who depart from Japan after entering the country due to bad weather or other unavoidable circumstances.