THIS WEEK WE COME UP WITH A VERY UNIQUE AIRLINE WITH A VERY STRONG AND INTRESTING STORY THAT DATES BACK TO EARLY 1950'S. ONE OF THE FINEST AIRLINERS IN ASIA AND DEFINATELY AMONGST THE BEST IN ASIA ! ITS ALL NIPPON AIRWAYS-JAPAN
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| ANA LOGO |
All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd. (全日本空輸株式会社, Zen Nippon Kūyu Kabushiki-gaisha TYO: 9202, LSE: ANA), also known as
Zennikkū (全日空) or
ANA, is the second largest airline in Japan, after Japan Airlines. It is headquartered at the Shiodome City Center in the Shiodome area in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.
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| SHIDOME CITY CENTRE |
It operates services to 49 destinations in Japan and 35 international routes and employed over 14,000 employees as of May 2009.
In May 2010, ANA’s total passenger traffic is up year-on-year by 7.8%, and its international services grow by 22% to 2.07 million passengers in the first five months of 2010.
ANA's main international hubs are at Narita International Airport outside Tokyo and Kansai International Airport in Osaka. Its main domestic hubs are at Tokyo International Airport, Osaka International Airport, Chūbu Centrair International Airport (near Nagoya), and New Chitose Airport (near Sapporo).
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| ANA BOEING AT FINALS |
In addition to its mainline operations, ANA controls several subsidiary passenger carriers,including its regional airline, Air Nippon, charter carrier, Air Japan, and Air Next, a low-cost carrier based at Fukuoka Airport which handles flights for ANA. Additional smaller carriers include Air Nippon Network (A-net), a subsidiary of Air Nippon, Air Central, Q400-based airline based at Chūbu Centrair International Airport, and ANA & JP Express (AJV), a freighter operator. ANA also announced its intentions to create at least one low-cost carrier subsidiary with another as of yet unnamed Asian airline during fiscal 2009.
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| B737 ANA AT MIDFLIGHT |
HISTORY
ANA's earliest ancestor was
Nippon Helicopter and Aeroplane (日本ヘリコプター輸送, Nippon Herikoputā Yus), an airline company founded on 27 December 1952.
Nippon Helicopter was the source of what would later be ANA's IATA airline code,
NH.
NH began helicopter services in February 1953. On 15 December 1953, it operated its first cargo flight between Osaka and Tokyo using a de Havilland Dove, JA5008.
This was the first scheduled flight flown by a Japanese pilot in postwar Japan. Passenger service on the same route began on 1 February 1954, and was upgraded to a de Havilland Heron in March.
In 1955, the Douglas DC-3 plane began flying for NH as well,
by which time the airline's route network extended from northern Kyūshū to Sapporo.
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| OLD LIVERY OF ANA |
ANA's other ancestor was
Far East Airlines (極東航空, Kyokutō Kōkū.Although it was founded on 26 December 1952, one day before NH, it did not begin operations until 20 January 1954, when it began night cargo runs between Osaka and Tokyo, also using a de Havilland Dove. It adopted the DC-3 in early 1957, by which point its route network extended through southern Japan from Tokyo to Kagoshima.
FEA merged with NH in March 1958. The combined companies had a total market capitalization of 600 million yen, and was Japan's largest private airline.
The merged airline, called
All Nippon Airways,
received a new Japanese name (全日本空輸
Zen Nippon Kūyu; Japan Air Transport). The company logo of the larger NH was selected as the logo of the new combined airline, and the new carrier operated a route network combined from its two predecessors.
ANA grew steadily through the 1960s, adding the Vickers Viscount to the fleet in 1960 and the Fokker F27 in 1961.
October 1961 marked ANA's debut at the Tokyo Stock Exchange as well as the Osaka Securities Exchange.
1963 saw another merger, this one with Fujita Airlines, raising the company's capital to 4.65 billion yen.
In 1965, ANA introduced jet services with Boeing 727s on the Tokyo-Sapporo route. It also introduced Japan's first homegrown turboprop airliner, the YS-11 in 1965, to replace Convair 440s on local routes.
In 1969, ANA introduced Boeing 737 service.
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| BOEING 747 AT TOUCHDOWN |
As ANA grew, it started to contract travel companies across Japan to handle ground services in each region. Many of these companies received shares in ANA as part of their deals. Some of these relationships continue today in different forms: for instance, Nagoya Railroad, which handled ANA's operations in the Chūbu region along with other partnerships,
maintains a permanent seat on ANA's board of directors.
By 1974, ANA had Japan's largest domestic airline network.
While ANA's domestic operations grew, the Ministry of Transportation had granted government-owned Japan Airlines (JAL) a monopoly on international scheduled flights,
which remained intact until 1986. ANA was allowed to operate international charter flights: its first was a 727 charter from Tokyo to Hong Kong on February 21, 1971.
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| B777 ON LIFTOFF |
ANA purchased its first widebody aircraft, six Lockheed L-1011s, in November 1971, following a lengthy sales effort by Lockheed which had involved negotiations between US president Richard Nixon, Japanese premier Kakuei Tanaka and UK premier Edward Heath (lobbying in favor of engine maker Rolls-Royce). Tanaka also pressed Japanese regulators to permit ANA to operate on Asia routes as part of the package.
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| INTERIORS OF THE ANA |
The aircraft entered service on the Tokyo-Okinawa route in 1974. The carrier had initially ordered McDonnell Douglas DC-10s, but cancelled the order at the last minute and switched to Lockheed. It was later revealed that Lockheed had indirectly bribed Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka to force this switch: the ensuing scandal led to the arrest of Tanaka and several managers from ANA and Lockheed sales agent Marubeni for corruption.Boeing 747-200s were introduced on the Tokyo-Sapporo and Tokyo-Fukuoka routes in 1976,
and Boeing 767s were introduced in 1983 On Shikoku routes. The carrier's first 747s were the short-range SR variant, designed for Japanese domestic routes.
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| B747 AT THE RAMP |
In 1986, ANA began to expand beyond Japan's key domestic carrier to become a competitive international carrier as well.
On 3 March 1986, ANA started scheduled international flights with a passenger service from Tokyo to Guam.
Flights to Los Angeles and Washington followed by year's end, and ANA also entered a service agreement with American AirlineS to feed the US carrier's new flights to Narita.
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| B747 WITH POKEMON THEME |
ANA expanded its international services gradually: to Beijing, Dalian, Hong Kong and Sydney in 1987; to Seoul in 1988; to London and Saipan in 1989; to Paris in 1990 and to New York in 1991.
Airbus equipment such as the A320 and A321 was added to the fleet in the early 1990s, as was the Boeing 747-481 jet. ANA joined the Star Alliance in October 1999.
2004 saw ANA's profits exceed JAL's for the first time. That year, facing a surplus of slots due to the construction of new airports and the ongoing expansion of Haneda airport, ANA announced a fleet renewal plan that would replace some of its large aircraft with a greater number of smaller aircraft
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| ANA TURBOPROP FOR REGIONAL SERVICE |
Also in 2004, ANA set up low-cost subsidiary Air Next to operate flights from Fukuoka Airport starting in 2005, and became the majority shareholder in Nakanihon Airline Service (NAL) headquartered in Nagoya Airport.
In 2005, ANA renamed NAL to Air Central, and relocated its headquarters to Chūbu Centrair International Airport.
On July 12, 2005, ANA reached a deal with NYK to sell its 27.6% share in Nippon Cargo Airlines, a joint venture formed between the two companies in 1987.
The sale allowed ANA to focus on developing its own cargo division. In 2006, ANA, Japan Post, Nippon Express, and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines founded ANA & JP Express (AJV), which would operate freighters. ANA is the top shareholder of AJV. It absorbed Air Japan's freighter operations.
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| B747 ANA |
Air Transport World named ANA its 2007 "Airline of the Year." In 2006, the airline was recognized by FlightOnTime.info as the most punctual scheduled airline between London and Tokyo for the last four consecutive years, based on official British statistics.
Japan Airlines took over the title in 2007. In 2009, ANA announced plans to test an idea as part of the airline's "e-flight" campaign, encouraging passengers on select flights to visit the airport restroom before they board.
On November 10 of the same year, ANA also announced "Inspiration of Japan", ANA's newest international flight concept, with redesigned cabins initially launched on its 777-300ER aircraft.
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| B777 ANA |
