Japan Airlines and ANA plan first joint domestic schedule changes
Flights between Tokyo and Okayama will be retimed from late October while both carriers contend with higher costs and a decline in business travel.
- For the first time, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways (ANA) are jointly coordinating a domestic flight schedule.
- The change affects the Tokyo-Okayama route starting in late October, moving the airlines' flights into separate time slots.
- This collaboration was made possible by a government panel's ruling that schedule coordination can comply with the Antimonopoly Act under specific conditions.
- The airlines are implementing this change to help maintain their networks amid challenges like higher fuel costs and fewer business travelers.
Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways (ANA) plan to move their Tokyo-Okayama services into separate time slots from late October so their flights no longer coincide.
People with knowledge of the plan revealed the details on Monday (August 17).
It will be the first time Japan’s two major carriers have worked together on the timing of a domestic route.
The service links Tokyo’s Haneda Airport with Okayama Airport in western Japan.
The scope for this arrangement was set out in a May report by an expert panel at Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
The panel concluded that schedule coordination can comply with the Antimonopoly Act when specified conditions are observed.
Before the panel’s report, concern over possible infringement of the legislation had kept schedule-setting entirely within each company.
This repeatedly left several operators choosing identical time slots for a single route.
Both airlines are also trying to retain their networks amid fierce rivalry, higher spending on fuel and aircraft upkeep and fewer customers travelling for work.
[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
