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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.

The announcement came on January 8 from the Ministry for Land Infrastructure Transport and Tourism (MLIT), with effect from March28, Sapporo New Chitose Airport, in Hokkaido will increase its landing and take-off slot for foreign carriers currently only allowed on Wednesday between 11:20am and 1:50pm to both Tuesday and Wednesday, with a wider time slot, between 12:00noon and 4:00pm, allowing it to cater a higher number of foreign carriers to use this airport.

The freeing of landing and take-off slots for foreign carriers would not have been made possible without Japan Air Self Defence Force endorsement, which it is sharing its airspace and airport runway. By relaxing the restrictions, it will help to increase the number of foreign tourists, which the move is inline with the current “Visit Japan Campaign” with a target to attract 25 million visitor arrivals by 2019. Currently, international flights may use the airport from 5:00pm on Fridays and all day on Saturdays and Sundays, with no changes planned for these times.

The changes will most likely to entail an increase in flight frequency by both existing Chinese and Russian Airlines using Sapporo, and prompting other Chinese carriers to consider launching new flight services. The number of Chinese visitors have been steadily growing, and efforts are made to expand the Chinese travel market which it hope this will make up for the loss of visitors from South Korea and elsewhere as a result of the global economic crisis.