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Japan Air Commuter retires last Q400 as more ATRs arrive
December 7th 2018
Japan Air Commuter (JAC), a Japan Airlines (JAL) subsidiary, performed its final Bombardier Q400 flight last Friday. Read More » The commuter carrier has replaced its eight Q400s with five ATR 42-600s and a single ATR 72-600, with three additional turboprops due at the airline next year. The carrier also operates five Saab 340s.
JAC launched its first ATR 42-600 flight from Kagoshima to Yakushima, a mountainous island in the Amami archipelago, on April 26. The JAC aircraft also performed its first return journey between Kagoshima and another Amani island, Okinoerabu, on the same day. The new ATR operator is a breakthrough for the manufacturer in Japan, a key growth market for ATR. Visitors to Japan are expected to reach 40 million in 2020, the year of the Tokyo Olympics.
The Amami Islands are a designated national park and are being considered for a UNESCO World Heritage listing in 2019. ATR’s turboprop aircraft are ideally suited to service the rugged approaches of the airports in this area of southern Japan, especially as 35% of Japan’s domestic air routes are less than 300 nautical miles (555 kilometres) in distance.
Parent JAL this week announced additional codeshare routes with Alaska Airlines that will become available with the launch of JAL’s daily Narita-Seattle B787-8 route from March 31.
JAL and Alaska will offer codeshare flights on 55 routes through Seattle, adding 19 destinations to JAL’s network, including connections to Alaska, Washington, Montana and Canada.
