Following the dissolution of the joint venture between Air Asia and All Nippon Airways (ANA) in June (see here), ANA has announced that Air Asia Japan will be re-branded as Vanilla Air from November 2013.
According to ANA president Tomonori Ishii, the reason why the name ‘Vanilla Air’ was chosen was because: “the simple and sophisticated flavour of vanilla is popular among people worldwide.” Ishii added: “We chose vanilla as our brand name because it is popular and loved by everyone in the world.”
ANA has taken over Air Asia 49% stake, and now has complete control of Vanilla Air. Whilst Air Asia Japan’s fleet will soon be returned to the Air Asia Group, ANA will source A320s for Vanilla Air.
The new low-cost carrier will commence operations in December 2013 with an initial fleet of two A320. However, Vanilla Air plans to increase the size of its fleet to 10 A320s by 2015.
Both domestic and international routes are expected to be similar to Air Asia Japan, but Vanilla Air will also service the leisure beach markets of Guam and Saipan. The carrier will also replace Air Asia Japan’s Tokyo Narita base.
For our two-part story about other unusual airline names, please see here, and here.
For more information, visit www.airasia.com/jp
Clement Huang
