Japan’s transport ministry to keep eye on ANA’s domestic codesharing

ANA Codeshare Partners at Haneda
All Air Do, Solaseed Air, and StarFlyer flights can also be booked as ANA flights.

On June 26, 2024, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s (MLIT) “Haneda Slot Allocation Criteria Review Subcommittee” held its last meeting, at which it decided to postpone domestic slot reallocation at Haneda Airport. The subcommittee also mentioned the need to ensure ANA’s codesharing agreement with Air Do, Solaseed Air, and Starflyer does not hinder fair competition.

When the Japanese airline market was deregulated in the 1990s, the government increased the maximum share of seats that could be sold by other airlines through codesharing from 25% to 50%. This, the government hoped, would help new airlines like Skymark Airlines and Skynet Asia Airways (now Solaseed Air) increase load factors by selling some of their seats through the majors.

Now, with the new airlines’ operations stabilized, the ministry believes it needs to keep an eye on the codesharing situation, which could potentially be giving ANA an unfair advantage.

As of May 2023, JAL had 183.5 domestic slots at Haneda Airport (39.4% of total) while ANA had 172.5 (37.0% of total). The four smaller domestic operators at the airport (Skymark Airlines, Air Do, Solaseed Air, and Starflyer) had 38 (8.2%), 23 (4.9%), 26 (5.6%), and 23 (4.9%) slots respectively.

In practice, however, ANA puts its flight numbers on all Air Do, Solaseed Air, and Starflyer flights. That combined with the fact that ANA can sell up to half of the seats available on those flights means that ANA in effect has not only the 172.5 slots it was directly allocated but also half of the 72 slots that the three smaller airlines it codeshares with for a combined 208.5 “slots” or approximately 45% of the total.

The codesharing gives ANA access to extra capacity on flights from Tokyo Haneda to Sapporo New Chitose, Asahikawa, Hakodate, Memambetsu, Obihiro, and Kushiro (operated by Air Do); Oita, Kumamoto, Nagasaki, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, and Naha (operated by Solaseed Air); and Osaka Kansai, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, and Yamaguchi-Ube (operated by StarFlyer).

For comparison, Skymark Airlines does not codeshare with other airlines. While JAL codeshares with Amakusa Airlines, Fuji Dream Airlines, and Oriental Air Bridge on regional routes, it does not codeshare with other Japanese airlines on domestic flights to and from Haneda Airport. Both of the airlines expressed their dissatisfaction with ANA’s codesharing situation to the ministry in the past.

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