AirAsia Japan confirms shutdown

AirAsia Japan (DJ, Nagoya Chubu) will terminate all operations effective October 5, 2020, confirming earlier media reports. The Japanese subsidiary of AirAsia Group, which operated just three A320-200s and was by far the group’s smallest carrier, said that the ongoing adverse economic impact of the pandemic has “severely curtailed” demand for its flights out of Nagoya Chubu. “Despite our unrelenting efforts to sustain operations through successive and wide-ranging cost reduction initiatives, we have concluded that it would be an extremely challenging feat for us to continue operating without any visibility and certainty of a post-pandemic recovery path,” Representative Director and Chief Operating Officer Jun Aida said. The carrier underlined that the decision did not affect any other AirAsia Group units, which will restart services to Japan as soon as regulations permit international services on both ends. AirAsia Japan has been largely dormant since April 2020, when the escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan grounded its operations. It restarted its three domestic routes from Nagoya (to Sapporo Chitose, Fukuoka, and Sendai) in early August 2020 but suspended them again in September due to low demand attributed to ongoing epidemic concerns. The carrier’s only international route, to Taipei Taoyuan, has been inactive since April. AirAsia Group holds a 66.91% stake in AirAsia Japan (but with only 33% of voting rights), with the remainder owned by various local investors including Rakuten, Noevir Holdings, and Alpen.