JETSTAR Japan expects to take to the skies ahead of schedule on July 3, 2012, with operations to five Japanese destinations.

Tokyo (Narita) – the airline’s first base – as well as Osaka, Sapporo, Fukuoka and Okinawa will be served by a fleet of three new Airbus A320 aircraft.

Jetstar Japan CEO Miyuki Suzuki said the carrier was preparing for strong customer demand when fares finally go on sale.

Since the start of 2012, Jetstar has announced 36 additional weekly international flights, or more than 6,000 extra seats, to and from Japan.

AGAINST the backdrop of Peach Aviation, AirAsia Japan and Jetstar Japan launching flights this year, Tokyo’s Ibaraki Airport is eyeing a slice of the aviation pie.

According to Kazunori Katsutani, director of Airport Promotion from Ibaraki Prefectural Government, the airport is tring to convince Jin Air, Air Busan, T-way Airlines and Eastar Airlines from South Korea, as well as Cebu Pacific Air and AirPhil Express from the Philippines of its value proposition, and is “prepared to offer assistance to interested low-cost carriers”.

Ibaraki Airport is located 80km northeast of central Tokyo and is accessible via a limousine bus service, which costs 500 Japanese Yen (US$6.40) for a one-way trip. The area within a 100km radius of the airport boasts a catchment population of 19.8 million.

Besides having slots for most parts of the day except 12:30-13:30 hrs, the airport is able to offer savings for airlines through landing charges which are lower than those at Narita and Haneda Airports. Its single-storey terminal has complimentary parking facilities for up to 1,300 vehicles.

Airlines with existing operations at Ibaraki Airport include China’s Spring Airlines and Japan’s Skymark Airlines. Asiana Airlines’ service from Seoul is temporarily suspended due to last year’s earthquake and tsunami.

ASIAN low-cost carriers (LCC) have managed to grow their footprint significantly in the past decade, but there is room for them to expand their operations even further.

According to aircraft manufacturer Airbus, LCC’s in Asia-Pacific have an intra-regional market share (in terms of number of seats offered) of only 22 per cent, compared to their North American and Europen counterparts, which have 29 and 39 per cent shares in their respective markets.

All the signs – including a forecasted six-fold increase in the region’s middle-class population between now and 2030, as well as fast-rising income levels – point to greater penetration by LCCs in the future.

For Airbus, AirAsia and IndiGo are now its first- and third-ranked customers in terms of planes purchased. Five of Airbus’ top ten customers worldwide are LCCs. Whereas only six of the world’s top 100 airlines were LCCs in 2000 (in terms of Revenue Passenger Kilometre), this sector now accounts for 23 of the top 100 airlines globally.

At the moment, Japan is the emerging LCC market with three carriers set to make their debut this year – Peach Aviation, which will launch flights linking Osaka-Kansai to Fukuoka and Sapporo in March, as well as AirAsia Japan and Jetstar Japan.

JAPAN’s first-ever pure low-cost carrier (LCC), Peach Aviation, is set to kick-off operations on March 1, inaugurating four daily flights from Osaka-Kansai Airport to Sapporo, and three daily flights from Osaka-Kansai to Fukuoka (TTG Asia e-Daily, August 25, 2011).

Peach Aviation CEO, Shinichi Inoue, promised that the airline would be “cute and nice”—reflected in the pink uniform its cabin crew will don. The carrier has also promised to inject a dose of Kansai humour during cabin announcements—an apparent reference to the Kansai people’s penchant for joking around.

The challenge for Peach in the run-up to the launch will be to educate the Japanese public about the need to pay for various ancillary services, and managing expectations from travellers accustomed to full-service carriers.

In admitting that the pure LCC model – selling point-to-point routes on one-class travel, using simple fares, no codesharing, operating a single aircraft type – was slow to enter the Japanese market, Inoue noted that he first became acquainted with the concept during a Terrapinn Low Cost Airlines conference back in 2008.

All Nippon Airways owns a 38.67 percent share in Peach, which is planning to launch additional routes to Nagasaki in March, Kagoshima in April, and Seoul (Incheon) in May.