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All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines planning domestic capacity lift for August
July 17th 2020
Japan's two largest airline groups plan to return domestic capacity close to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels in August amid encouraging demand underpinned by an easing of restrictions and government promotional activity. Read More »
All Nippon Airways (ANA) said this week it would operate 88% of scheduled domestic flights in August, with the figure to reach 95% during the middle of the month. Demand was expected to recover due to the Japanese government's "Go To" travel campaign, as well as the summer holiday period, it said.
Most flights would be back to almost a full schedule. For example, there would be 14.5 round trips a day from Tokyo Haneda to Osaka Itami in August compared with a normal schedule of 15 round trips a day. The Haneda-Fukuoka service would be operated for 17.5 round trips per day in the month from a normal schedule of 18 round trips a day.
Similarly, Japan Airlines (JAL) said late last week it would operate 91% of scheduled domestic flights in August, from about 55% currently and an expected 68% at the end of this month.
The airline said there had been a 35% improvement in travel demand since the Japanese government lifted domestic travel restrictions on June 19. Looking ahead, it forecast a 70% recovery in demand for August.
JAL's latest monthly traffic report, published this week, showed domestic passengers flown in June more than doubled to 642,607, from 243,979 in May. It should be noted the domestic passenger total represented a 79% decline from June 2019.
Available seat kilometres (ASK) increased by 45% from May to June, while demand, or revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), was up by 168% month-on-month. With demand rising ahead of capacity, the passenger load factor rose to 41.6% in June, from 22.5% in May.
ANA was yet to release its June passenger statistics.
While the outlook from ANA and JAL was upbeat, the recent rise in coronavirus cases in Tokyo had the potential to temper the country's returning enthusiasm for travel. Yesterday, the Japanese capital recorded 286 new cases of COVID-19, the highest single day figure since July 10, when there were 243 cases.
Local government officials have urged residents to avoid non-essential travel to other prefectures and called on businesses to ensure guidelines for preventing the spread of the disease were followed.
"We decided we needed to raise the alert level to warn residents infection is spreading," Tokyo Governor, Koike Yuriko, told local media this week.
The "Go To" travel campaign, due to officially kick off on July 22, would not include travel to and from Tokyo, Japanese tourism minister, Kazuyoshi Akaba, said this week. Tokyo could be included after the rate of COVID-19 infections was reduced to acceptable levels later in the campaign. Go To is planned to run until March 2021.
"We will be excluding from the campaign those who are making Tokyo their tourist destination and those who reside in Tokyo traveling outside the prefecture," the minister said.
The 1.7 trillion yen (US$15.9 billion) "Go To" scheme offered subsidies and discounts for travelling domestically, covering up to 50% of travel-related spending, such as accommodation and transportation.
Figures from the International Air Transport Association showed Japan will experience a 53% drop in passenger demand, or revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), in 2020, which represented a revenue impact of US$23.9 billion.
