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Skymark Airlines (headquarters in Ota ward, Tokyo) has recently announced its plan to tap into and expand its late-night and early morning flight services from Haneda airport. With Haneda airport set to operate around the clock, being presently used only by cargo jets and international charter flights late at night, Skymark Airlines plans to add late-night and early morning hours round-trip flights from Haneda to Naha, Haneda to Kitakyushu as well as from Kitakyushu to Naha set to begin this summer. All 3 airports, Haneda Airport, Naha Airport and Kitakyushu Airport are catered for 24 hours operations.

Already been confirmed that Skymark will launch 2 late-night Naha-bound flights leaving Haneda airport at midnight starting in June and at 12:20 a.m. to start in July, with arrival at Naha airport around 02:40 a.m. and 03:00 a.m. The return flight will leave Naha sometime between 3 and 4 a.m. and arrive at Haneda before 6 a.m.

Skymark Airlines further plans to add Haneda-Kitakyushu and Kitakyushu-Naha round-trip flights, with flight departure/arrival time between midnight and 06:00 a.m. to make use of Kitakyushu Airport’s 24-hour operations. Skymark hopes this will give travelers greater flexibility and stimulate demand by flying new routes. At present, Starflyer Airlines is the only carrier operating a late-night flight on a domestic route between Haneda and Kitakyushu, leaving Haneda at 23:25h and with an estimate arrival into Kitakyushu at 00:55h.

The Haneda-Naha, Haneda-Kitakyushu and Kitakyushu-Naha flights bring the total number of the airline’s routes to twelve. Skymark also plan to add more new routes later of the year to Kagoshima, Kumamoto and Nagasaki (via Kobe). Skymark operates on a single fleet of Boeing B737-800 aircrafts, with a seating capacity of under 180 passengers, using a single class configuration.

Japan finally will see the arrival of a true low-cost carrier happening. Malaysian’s budget carrier AirAsia Group has said that it plans to launch its first flights serving Japan by the end of the year. The flight will be operated by AirAsia X, the long-distance arm of AirAsia, to serve between Kuala Lumpur’s new Low-Cost Terminal in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital and Tokyo Haneda Airport, at a frequency of 3 flights weekly. It hopes to increase the frequency making it a daily service. The Japanese government has already allotted landing and takeoff slots to AirAsia X at Haneda airport, soon to open its International terminal building end of the year.

The aircraft type will be an Airbus A330 aircraft, a mid-size fleet with good fuel efficiency, and commonly used among low-cost carriers. Airfare can go as low as 14,000yen one-way with introductory airfare planning at 2500yen to catch the eyes of the discerning Japanese travellers. In addition, AirAsia will not implement the fuel surcharge to appeal to its customers. Japanese are usually weary of low priced goods and are doubtful if the service offered will be up to the basic. However, for many who has travelled with AirAsia before would know that even as an LCC it is comparable to some full-fledge carriers, and could even fair better in service standards. It has won numerous service awards and received accolades from key travel industries worldwide. AirAsia saw its passenger traffic jump year on year, even overtook asia’s powerhouse, Singapore Airlines, to become the biggest carrier in Southeast Asia.

Just like any other low-cost carriers, complimentary meal service will not be served and meals and beverages will be sold instead. Fees will be charged for bringing any extra luggage exceeding the 7kg allowance for carry-on. And stripping its costs to the bare minimum, reservations can only be made online and thus credit card is required to make a purchase. As such there won’t be phone booking available as it will inflate the running costs.

AirAsia is also planning to introduce flights to New Chitose Airport(CTS) in Sapporo, Kansai International Airport(KIX) in Osaka and Fukuoka International Airport(FUK). Unfortunately, it has left out the newly opened Ibaraki Airport, only opened last month and is trying hard to win airlines to using its airport.

Meanwhile, AirAsia X is also tipped to receive the rights to fly to Seoul and other cities soon. It will officially start flying to Mumbai in May and New Delhi in August.