Japanese low-cost carrier Skymark Airlines is to open a new base at Tokyo Nartia launching eight daily flights to four destinations from late 2011. Dubbed the ‘Narita Shuttle’ the airline will offer twice daily flights to Asahikawa from October 30; Sapporo Chitose from November 20; Naha Okinawa from December 1 and Fukuoka from February 01, 2012. It also plans to add links to Hakodate, Ishigaki, Izumo, Takamatsu and Tokushima at a later date offering up to 25 daily flights by the middle of 2014 as additional capacity become available at Narita Airport.
The airline will be the first budget carrier to establish an operational base at Tokyo Narita. It already has a strong presence in the Japanese capital with 290 weekly flights to eight domestic destinations from Tokyo Haneda, offering more than 34,000 seats, but is understood to have selected Narita as its base due to the high costs of flying from the downtown airport. In the past Haneda had been the main domestic gateway into the Japanese capital but in the last couple of years an increasing number of international services are now flying there.
On the other side, the recently privatised Narita is looking to increase its internal coverage and this deal with Skymark will go a long away to it achieving its goal to double its domestic market in the next couple of years. The airport is taking a much more commercial focus and with additional take-off and landing slots now available at the previously constrained facility, there is scope for further growth and even discussions about the opening of a dedicated low-cost terminal within the next two years. For this year Narita is proposing lower fees for new entrants and discounts for incumbents who expand frequencies.
Three of the four initial destinations planned by Skymark Airlines are already served from Tokyo Narita by All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL). Together they provide up to five daily flights to Fukuoka and Sapporo Chitose and two daily links to Naha Okinawa. There are currently no services to Asahikawa from Narita but ten flights per day are offered from Haneda.
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ROUTE ANALYSIS: Domestic Japanese Routes (weekly non-stop flights on specific routes) |
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|
Origin |
Destination |
Flights |
Seats |
O&D Pax |
Average Fare |
|
Tokyo Haneda |
Asahikawa |
70 |
14,168 |
427,684 |
$235 |
|
Sapporo Chitose |
469 |
127,561 |
3,930,615 |
$210 |
|
|
Naha Okinawa |
185 |
52,294 |
1,893,140 |
$282 |
|
|
Fukuoka |
322 |
94,497 |
3,443,002 |
$236 |
|
|
Tokyo Narita |
Sapporo Chitose |
35 |
5,684 |
76,064 |
$224 |
|
Nahah Okinawa |
14 |
3,045 |
48,829 |
$277 |
|
|
Fukuoka |
35 |
4,802 |
48,739 |
$288 |
|
Skymark Airlines already offers considerably lower average fares than its rivals to the three new destinations that it already serves from Tokyo Henada. To Sapporo Chitose its average one-way fare is just $80 versus the $210 average, to Nahah Okinawa it is $113 versus $210 and to Fukuoka it is $83, almost a third of the $236 route average. It has already announced a pre-launch ticket sale at Tokyo Narita under the ‘Sky Bargain’ marketing campaign with fares from just 980 Yen (approximately $12) and has revealed three quarters of the seat capacity on offer will be priced at less than 10,000 Yen ($119).
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NOTE: Schedule data extracted from Flightbase for week commencing April 14, 2011; Traffic data extracted from IATA BSP system for the year ending January 2011.
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