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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.

Skymark Airlines (headquarters in Ōta-ward, Tokyo), a Japanese low-cost start-up that began operations in 1998 following after deregulation, is likely to report a profit for this fiscal year despite its big Japanese competitors and full-fledge carriers ANA and JAL, reported making heavy losses.

Skymark Airlines as an independent carrier could well weather the economic downturn, by using its lean model of business and cost reduction measures, operates just one single fleet of 12 Boeing 737-800s, common with many low-cost carriers. It used to operate a small number of Boeing 767-300s, but due to its higher seating capacity resulting in lower fuel efficiency as well as requiring more passengers to break even, were disposed of from its fleet eventually.

Skymark Airlines latest expansion was to make Kobe a secondary base, after Haneda. It has recently started a new route in December from its base at Kobe operating twice-daily flight to Okinawa. It also has announced to conduct daily flights between Kobe and Fukuoka began this month on February 1st. It is aiming to develop Kobe Airport into a regional hub by 2014, adding new routes from Kobe to Sapporo, Sendai, Matsuyama, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, and Naha.

Skymark Airlines has at the request of Ibaraki Airport to commence regular flight service using this newly built airport that is scheduled for opening in a few week’s time. Skymark Airlines has decided at the opening day of Ibaraki Airport on March 11 to conduct commemorative flights, 2 flight leaving from Kobe to Ibaraki, 1 flight each leaving from Ibaraki to Kobe and Haneda making a total of 4 flights on that day. Reservations for the commemorative flights started in January 30, and all 177 seats on all the flights were sold out in a few weeks after released. It is still considering whether to operate regular service using this airport.

Skymark Airlines market share in Japan.