All Nippon Airways (ANA) has announced plans for a large-scale expansion of its international operations over the next five years, as the carrier faces the prospect of slower growth and increased competition at home.
Under ANA's mid-term 1997-2001 corporate plan, international operations will be expanded from 30% to 50% of total seat-kilometre capacity. The airline carried a 39.8 million passengers in 1996, of which almost 37 million were domestic passengers.
ANA is planning for growth in domestic traffic of only 2-3%, which it says is insufficient to sustain the company. "Our growth is in international operations," says Yoshiyuki Nakamachi, senior managing director corporate planning.
Much of the planned expansion depends on outside factors, including the anticipated opening of a second runway at Tokyo's congested Narita Airport by 2000, and reaching a new bilateral air-services agreement with the USA. "These two are very important for expanding operations," says Nakamachi.
ANA now has 69 international slots a week at Narita, plus two weekly codeshares with Austrian Airlines, and "-that has not changed in five years", the airline says.
The long-awaited addition of a second runway at Narita will add 100,000 slots a year to the 120,000 already available at the airport.
As part of any new bilateral treaty with the USA, the airline is pushing for incumbent status and more routes and frequencies into North America. Apart from opening routes from Narita and Osaka's Kansai Airport to Honolulu and the US mainland, a new agreement would finally clear the way for ANA to formalise a codesharing tie-up with Delta Air Lines.
The bulk of ANA's planned annual 16-17% international expansion is aimed at Asia.
With the opening of Hong Kong's new airport at Chek Lap Kok in April 1998, ANA wants to increase its 14 weekly flights from Narita and Kansai to a thrice-daily frequency and in the longer-term launch services from Fukuoka, Sapporo and Sendai. The airline also wants to double its daily services to Beijing and Shanghai and add Tienjin and Shenyang to its China network.
ANA plans to expand services to South-East Asia by opening a new route to Hanoi and adding flights to Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, with daily flights to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. ANA's plans also include the launch of a three-times-a-day service from Hiroshima to Guam and increasing flights to Paris and Frankfurt to daily frequencies.
Over the next five years, ANA plans to invest ´770 billion ($6 billion) on expanding its fleet from 124 to 152 aircraft. A total of 53 new Boeing 747-400s, 777-200/ 300s, 767-300s, Airbus A320/ 321s and A340s are due for delivery by 2001, while 25 older 747-100/200s are due for retirement.
ANA is hoping to boost revenue from a projected ´880 billion for fiscal year 1997 to ´1.15 trillion by 2000, generating an operating profit of ´30-35 billion.
Source: Flight International
