Jetstar Japan Brings Forward Domestic Launch

Jetstar Japan, the new low-cost joint venture between Qantas, Japan Airlines (JAL) and Mitsubishi Corporation, will inaugurate flights in July 2012 some months earlier than anticipated as it seeks to establish itself in the emerging budget airline sector in Japan. The airline will be based at Tokyo Narita and will initially operate with three Airbus A320s.

The start-up has tentatively scheduled flights to commence by the end of this year, but following the launch of Peach Aviation and the formation of AirAsia Japan, it has accelerated its own development plans. It will start operations from July 3, 2012 initially serving the domestic points of Fukuoka, Okinawa, Osaka and Sapporo.

“Serving the Japanese customer for the past five years with international services gives us a clear advantage in rolling out a domestic network,” said Bruce Buchanan, Chief Executive Officer, Jetstar Group. “The Jetstar brand is a known quantity in this market and that awareness is helping us put together a strong, hard-working local team. We’ve built up a lot of trust with Japanese consumers who know that when we say every day low fares, we mean it.”

The group’s Jetstar Asia Airways venture was actually one of the first low-cost carriers to serve Japan and since the start of this year it has introduced an additional 36 flights per week to Japan from international destinations offering more than 6,000 additional seats in and out of this market. The carrier anticipates this existing network will help generate additional demand for the new domestic routes from its Japanese venture.

The table below shows the current capacity and estimated O&D demand on the domestic routes that Jetstar Japan will initially serve…

The revised launch schedule will enable Jetstar Japan to launch flights a month ahead of fellow budget start-up AirAsia Japan. The latter carrier, a joint venture between Air Asia and All Nippon Airways (ANA), received the green light for its planned launch earlier this month when the Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism awarded the start-up its Air Operators Certificate (AOC). AirAsia Japan plans to also serve on three of the Jetstar Japan routes from Tokyo Narita - Fukuoka, Okinawa and Sapporo Chitose – from August 1, 2012 but it will also serve international markets commencing services from October 1, 2012 to the Korean cities of Busan and Seoul.