Japanese airline companies All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL) will increase domestic passenger flights especially during the country's traditional summer Obon holiday in August, encouraged by stronger air travel demand.
ANA and JAL will operate temporary flights during 6-16 August, on top of regular flights that the airlines have been gradually increasing especially since Japan's Golden Week holiday in May.
ANA expects its number of domestic flight bookings during the Obon holiday to rise by 66.8pc on the year to 1.2mn, while JAL sees its domestic bookings almost doubling to 928,000.
Japanese refiners have been raising their jet fuel output in anticipation of stronger domestic demand during the country's summer holiday season. Aviation fuel production in the four weeks to 23 July was around 214,000 b/d, up by 16.8pc from a year earlier, data from the Petroleum Association of Japan show. But production was lower by 33.9pc from pre-pandemic 2019.
Japan's largest travel agent JTB predicted in July that the total number of domestic travellers, including those travelling by airplanes, railways and cars, would increase by 75pc to 70mn between 15 July and 31 August. It predicted that the number of international travellers would increase by more than five times to 500,000 during the period, although this would still be lower by 83pc from 2019.
International air travel demand is also recovering, encouraged by the opening up of borders from Covid-19 restrictions, with ANA and JAL also easing cuts to flight operations. ANA and JAL see international flight bookings with the airlines increasing by more than four times to around 125,000 and 131,000 respectively during the Obon holiday.
