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ANA restoring some domestic flights in June
May 22nd 2020
All Nippon Airways (ANA) has scheduled a slight increase in domestic services in June compared with its operations for May. Read More »
The airline published its domestic schedule for June this week which showed 5,963 flight suspensions in the month, or some 70% of the flights it had planned to operate before the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic.
The figure was below the 85% cancellation rate in the final two weeks of this month. Schedule changes for June included boosting the Tokyo Haneda-Osaka Itami route to between six and eight daily services from twice daily currently.
There also would be seven to nine daily flights between Haneda and Fukuoka, compared with three to four daily flights at present.
Rival Japan Airlines (JAL) also outlined its domestic schedule changes for the first half of June this week.
The oneworld alliance member had cancelled 8,584 domestic flights from June 1 to June 14, representing about 72% of its planned domestic network prior to COVID-19. The figure was broadly unchanged for the week of May 23-31.
The Japanese government declared a State of Emergency, which called on people to limit social interactions and for businesses to restrict opening hours or stay closed, on April 8.
Initially, it applied to the prefectures of Chiba, Fukuoka, Hyogo, Kanagawa, Osaka, Saitama and Tokyo. It was extended to the entire nation on April 16. Mid this month, the shutdown was lifted for some parts of the country.
JAL's most recent monthly traffic figures covering the time when the State of Emergency was in place recorded the number of domestic passengers across the airline group, which included regional affiliates, fell 88.5% to 343,770 in April, compared with the same month a year earlier.
Demand, measured by revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), tumbled 88.9%, while the airline reduced capacity, or available seat kilometres (ASK), by 57.5%. With demand falling faster than capacity, JAL's domestic load factor dropped 50.3 percentage points to 19.6%.
ANA's monthly traffic report told a similar story. The Star alliance member carried 341,469 domestic passengers in April, down 90%, from 3.43 million, in the prior corresponding period.
RPKs declined 89.9%, while capacity was cut by 59.6%. Its domestic load factor slid 48.7 percentage points to 16.2%.
Written by Jordan Chong
