Virgin Australia eyes a Tokyo partnership with ANA Airline

The allocation of four slot pairs at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport for Australian services has been well covered by Simple Flying.

Two slot pairs have been allocated to Australian carriers. Qantas put up its hand for both. Darkhorse Virgin Australia was somewhat of a surprise starter and has asked for one slot pair. And now we know what Virgin Australia plans to do.

As reported in Executive Traveller, Virgin Australia, in its application to Australia’s International Air Services Commission (IASC) wants to operate a daily A330-200 between Brisbane and Haneda in conjunction with Japan’s All Nippon Airways.

Virgin Australia’s only competitor on the Brisbane-Tokyo route will be Qantas which offers a daily A330-300 service to Narita.

What’s the plan?

Virgin Australia does not currently fly to Japan.

It does fly to Hong Kong but that route is underperforming leading to some speculation the airline will do a switcheroo.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) presently flies to Sydney from Narita and Perth from Haneda and is in the box seat to pick up a slot pair to operate a rumoured Haneda-Melbourne service next year.

Under Virgin Australia’s proposal,

their passengers out of Brisbane can be funnelled on to one of ANA’s 38 domestic Japanese destinations which will be tagged with Virgin Australia flight numbers. Luggage can be checked through to final ANA domestic destinations and there will be reciprocal recognition of high-status passengers and benefits.

On the flipside, ANA will be able to sell tickets to their passengers using ANA flight numbers on Virgin Australia’s domestic destinations and international destinations around Oceania. Luggage will be checked through to final destinations and high status Mileage Club members will be recognised.

Subject to IASC approval, this tieup between Virgin Australia and All Nippon Airways will provide VA with a further close ally in the Star Alliance programme.

Thinking behind the application

Virgin Australia argues that Brisbane-Tokyo is underserved. Nearly 176,000 passengers made the flight between Brisbane and Tokyo in the last 12 months.

Virgin Australia will add over 200,000 seats on the route if its application is successful.

The airline argues that between its ability to disperse inbound passengers around Australia on its domestic services from Brisbane, traffic feed from ANA in Japan, and the overall growth in passenger numbers between Australia and Japan, the route is viable. Neither Qantas or Japan Airlines will come close to matching that. A competitive edge Virgin Australia surely is not used to!