ANA is launching several regional and trans-Pacific routes in the coming months to provide new links to the US and access to a number of important or emerging business locations.
The airline will start flights between Tokyo Narita and the Californian city of San Jose from January 11 in 2013. There will be five weekly flights everyday except Tuesday and Thursday, all using 787 aircraft.
An ANA spokesperson said they had chosen to connect San Jose because of its growing economy and position at the centre of the US tech industry.
“San Jose is at the heart of Silicon Valley,” she said. “Many overseas companies, especially Japanese companies, are in that area.”
She added that currently there are no airlines offering this route. Passengers travelling to San Jose from Japan must transfer at either San Francisco or Los Angeles.
ANA will also start flights between Tokyo Narita and Delhi from October 28 this year. The service is intended to allow travellers from India to use Tokyo as a hub for onward connections to the US, the spokesperson said.
She said the airline expected more than 50 per cent of the route’s traffic to be flying between India and the US.
Within Asia, the airline will start three weekly flights between Tokyo Narita and the emerging destination of Yangon in Myanmar from October 15. The spokesperson said that ANA expects a high use of these flights by business travellers.
“There will be many Japanese businesses who have demand to fly to Myanmar,” she said. “Many Japanese companies will move into the country.”
The service will use an all-business class 737-700ER (38-seater), according industry website to airlineroute.net. The ANA spokesperson said that three weekly flights was the maximum number the airline is currently allowed to operate to Yangon, but that they expect this allowance to be increased and will likely launch more flights then.
For more information, visit www.ana.co.jp
Nicholas Olczak
