TokyoTomo Travel Guide

No use crying over spilled milk now, I must say. “You build it so they will come” and so that investors will flood the door when infrastructure is in place. Who are to be blamed? Those who hope to profit from the economic benefit an airport are just as guilty, don’t just blame it on the salesman, the people in the office who decided the construction of the airport. However they will not sleep well every night without being pricked by guilt.

Ibaraki Airport now officially recognised as the 98th airport opened in Japan, has been making headlines for the past few months prior to its opening, with everyone’s questioning its very existance, the need for its construction. It opened at a tough time when bad news are pouring everywhere and after the bankruptcy of Japan Airlines, largest Airlines in Asia, whose main reasons contributing to its failure were believed to be from over expanding too quickly and relation with the past administration, often being pressured to operate from several airports that could hardly able to fill enough passengers on its flight.

With a new JAL, from now on being closely watched by the public and tendency to be scrutinized for one small mistake, it quickly turned down the offer when asked to consider flying into Ibaraki airport. No question asked. JAL’s rival, ANA, rejected using Ibaraki airport too. This explained why Ibaraki airport opened on the 11th of this month with only one single regular flight at opening and one domestic flight to commence a month later after opening.

No one would expect this to have happened. Those numbers were looking so promising and everyone thought the plan will take off. Again unfortunately the numbers were bloated to trick people into believing that decisions were not wrongly made. It is done so so that it will allow for multi-million dollars construction works to be passed. Not realizing that what is in demand are construction projects but not airports.

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ANA (NH) has installed “Ladies-only Lavatory” on international routes as from 1st March 2010, except the flights which operated by Airbus A320 and Boeing B737 fleets. Following many requests from passengers for this service, one ladies-only lavatory will be located in the aft section of the Economy Class.

ANA will continue its efforts to improve its service by taking passengers’ requests such as arranging equipments for ladies etc. All the installing work on all the planned fleets will be completed by the end of April.

Even if this facility is for ladies-only, in the case of emergencies such as when required for safety reasons, just prior to the seat belt sign being turned on during take-off and landing, or when a passenger is not feeling well and a personal urgent requires such use, men passengers may be allowed to use these facilities. Also if there are very few female passengers, the ladies-only designation may be lifted for the flight. In such cases, passengers will be informed through an in-flight announcement. In addition, the facility will be used by passengers with disabilities.

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.

The aggregate number of international passengers carried by All Nippon Airways during the year 2009 declined by 5.4 percent year-on-year to 3,952,450. While traffic demand, as measured by revenue passenger kilometers (RPK), fell by 4.8 percent, the average seat load factor rose by 2.7 percentage points to 73.0 percent since seat capacity, as measured by available seat kilometers (ASK), was reduced by 8.3 percent.

During the first half of 2009 which suffered from the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu, the passenger numbers dropped drastically by 16.6 percent to 1,789,331. The average seat load factor went down by 6.0 percentage points to 66.1 percent. By destinations, the North America route suffered a traffic decrease of 23.5 percent to 350,365 passengers and all the other routes also underperformed with a double-digit decrease. However, as far as a seat load factor is concerned, the Asia-Oceania route showed a relatively small decrease of 0.9 percent to 61.4.

On the other hand, the second half of the year 2009 saw a vibrant growth. The systemwide passenger loads transported by ANA increased by 6.4 percent to 2,163,119, registering an 80.0 percent seat load factor, up by 11.5 percentage points. By destinations, the North America route carried 430,301 passengers, down by 2.1 percent, failing to achieve a positive traffic growth, whilst the Asia-Oceania route boosted its traffic by 10.0 percent to 1,481,558 and the Europe route also enjoyed a positive passenger load of 251,260, up by 2.0 percent.

ANA’s recovery trend during the second half of 2009 can easily be observed from its monthly traffic growth. The overall passenger loads transported by the airline during the month of August marked a positive increase by 3.3 percent, followed by September up by 6.9 percent, October up by 8.1 percent, November up by 10.8 percent and December up by 18.6 percent. Also, the airline’s average seat load factor showed a year-on-year increase since the month of July and, after September, it started to post a double-digit recovery.

RPK: Revenue Passenger Kilometers
ASK: Available Seat Kilometers
L/F: Load Factor = RPK/ASK

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.