Japan still #3 country worldwide for air travel;
three countries dominate international traffic;
JAL and ANA reveal cutback plans

Tokyo became the fourth city to receive commercial A380 flights when Singapore Airlines launched services to Narita on 20 May, which coincided with the airport’s 30th anniversary celebrations. Singapore Airlines CEO Chew Choon Seng (right) and Narita Airport president Kosaburo Morinaka (centre) cut the ribbon to celebrate the first A380 flight departing Narita.

Japan’s 60-plus commercial airports handled an estimated 260 million passengers in 2007, more than any other country with the exception of the USA and China and beating the UK with just over 240 million into third place. However, Japan’s population at over 125 million is twice as big as that of the UK and the country is about 50% larger in terms of area.

Traffic is dominated by the two airports serving Tokyo, Haneda which caters primarily for domestic flights, and Narita which handles most international flights. These two airports processed over 100 million passengers between them in 2007.

Source: ACI

Traffic across Japan’s airports has increased by less than 3% per annum during the last four years.

A Buddhist monk prays for safe flights during a ceremony to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Narita Airport on 20 May.

Domestic duopoly – ANA and JAL share over 85% of market

According to OAG schedule data ANA and JAL dominate the domestic airline market with over 85% of seats and flights. ANA is the slightly larger of the two with nearly 30 more routes and significantly more flights.

Airline	Frequency share	Market share	Routes
ANA	50.1%	44.3%	126
JAL	36.3%	43.6%	98
Japan Transocean Air	4.6%	3.9%	18
Skymark Airlines	2.9%	2.5%	5
JAL Express	2.8%	2.3%	8
Hokkaido International	1.5%	2.1%	4
Source: OAG Max Online for w/c 4 August 2008

The top 12 domestic routes are dominated by routes to and from Haneda led by the route to Sapporo Chitose airport. On many of the largest routes JAL has a higher capacity market share than ANA.

Source: ACI

The only non-Haneda route in the rankings from Okinawa to Ishigaki connects two airports in the Ryuku Islands.

Half of all international traffic going to/from just three countries

Analysis of international traffic from Japan’s airports reveals that ANA, JAL and subsidiary JALways share around a third of all capacity.

Source: OAG Max Online for w/c 4 August 2008

Northwest owes its prominent position to flights from Detroit, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St Paul, Portland, Seattle and San Francisco with many of these connecting on to other destinations in China, Korea, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

The leading European airlines are Lufthansa (daily flights from Frankfurt to Fukuoka, Kansai and Narita plus Munich to Narita), Air France (thrice daily to Narita from CDG and daily to Kansai), KLM, British Airways and Alitalia. A total of 65 airlines operate international services to Japan.

Just three country markets account for almost half of all international seats. China, South Korea and the USA each have around 16-17% of international seat capacity. The remaining capacity is spread across a further 39 country markets including Egypt, Mexico, Mongolia, Norway and Uzbekistan.

JAL’s Narita-Moscow route was relocated from Sheremetyevo to Domodedovo last December. JAL Executive Vice President Katsuhiko NAWANO; Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan in the Russian Federation Yasuo SAITO and Domodedovo airport complex Director Sergey Rudakov, cut the ribbon to mark the occasion.

JAL and ANA cutting back

Both JAL and ANA have this week announced plans to cut capacity this winter though both airlines have reported respectable financial results in the face of rising fuel costs. In its latest quarterly results presentation JAL revealed plans to axe 12 domestic routes including five to/from Kansai and all routes to/from Fukushima. Most of these will not take effect until early 2009.

It will also suspend daily international flights between Fukuoka and Shanghai, and Nagoya and Busan (both from end of October) and between Osaka (Kansai) and London (from end of March 2009).

ANA intends to drop two international routes currently served daily between Nagoya and Taipei (from 26 October 2008), and between Kansai and Guam (from 13 January 2009). One domestic route from Nagasaki to Okinawa will also be suspended from 1 February 2009 while eight others will see frequency reductions from 1 November (six routes) or 1 February 2009 (two routes).