NEWS

Marketing Japan: ANA to Launch Budget Airlines!

Great News! Japan’s best airlines (no, it’s not Japan Airlines)… Japan’s best airlines, All Nippon Airways will launch a LCC (Low Cost Carrier).

Japan’s ANA to launch budget carrier

TOKYO — Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) is to launch a low-cost carrier that will operate both international and domestic short-haul routes from the second half of 2011, the company said Thursday.

ANA said it had signed an agreement with Hong Kong-based private equity firm First Eastern Investment Group to establish “the first Japanese low-cost airline”, adding that it would operate independently from ANA.

The new company will be established by the end of this year, ANA said, with the aim of flying both international and domestic short-haul routes out of Kansai International Airport, Osaka by 2011.

“Regardless of the intense competition in the air transportation industry, we anticipate an increase in passenger traffic demand in East Asia,” said Shinichiro Ito, president and chief executive of ANA.

The carrier “came to the conclusion that a low cost carrier would be the right approach to compete effectively in this market” he said.

The airline said the new company will be 66.7 percent owned by Japanese investors, with ANA holding a 39 percent stake.

First Eastern will hold the remaining 33.3 percent stake, the maximum foreign ownership currently allowed in Japan.