Airline News
Japanese LLCs cut back as pilot shortage bites
June 10th 2014
Japan’s low-cost carriers are struggling to recruit more pilots in the face of an acute systemic shortage of flight crew in the country. Read More »
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The burgeoning LCC’s are beginning to feel the pressure on their operations and bottom lines as it has become increasingly difficult to find qualified flight crew to man the fast-growing fleets of the budget carriers.
ANA-affiliate Vanilla Air is forced to cancel 154 flights this month, or about 20% of its services, out of its Narita base. This is estimated to cost it an estimated US$1 million in lost sales. More cancellations are not ruled out.
In late April, Japan’s largest LCC to date, Peach Aviation, announced the cancellation of 2,088 of its flights, or about 16% of its scheduled services.
The reasons for the systemic failure are manifold. Japan’s flight schools do not produce enough flight crew to meet the growing demand and the absence of in-house cadet programmes, in addition to most carriers’ hesitance to recruit foreign crew, only adds to the dire situation.
It will be interesting to see this develop with China’s Spring Airlines Japan set to launch services in June and Air Asia’s Tony Fernandes planning the re-launch of his AirAsia Japan for 2015.
