All Nippon Airways (ANA) has announced that it will return to Perth later in the year following the suspension of flights during the pandemic.
ANA had originally planned to resume flights between Perth and Tokyo Narita in late March this year, but in its new flight timetable for the financial year 2023, Japan’s largest airline revealed that it would return to Western Australia in its ‘winter schedule’.
“From the winter schedule (starting late October), ANA will resume services between Perth and Tokyo Narita with three round trips per week,” ANA Australia country manager Brett Walsh told Karryon in an email.
“The start of Perth sales will be announced soon.”
The services will operate under flight numbers NH881/882.
While Western Australians will have to wait a little longer for a non-stop service to Japan, those flying from Sydney to Tokyo will soon have more flights to choose from after the carrier announced it would be increasing services between Haneda Tokyo and the NSW capital from 10-times weekly to twice daily – just a fortnight after announcing the initial expansion to 10-times weekly.
“All Nippon Airways has announced even greater increases in services between Australia and Japan with the Sydney daytime flights being extended to daily from next Sunday 22 January,” Walsh said.
“This is in addition to the daily nighttime departures, making that double daily between Sydney and Tokyo Haneda.”
The new services will operate under flight numbers NH889/890.
Travel to Japan continues to rise
Upon releasing the schedule, ANA said it would continue to rebuild its network to “meet the demand for travel to and from Japan, which is expected to continue to increase from 2022, with the relaxation of Japan’s travel restrictions”.
Indeed, according to at least one report, Japan was the number-one, most-searched destination globally towards the end of last year.
Along with increases in Australian flights, ANA will up flights to the US and Europe, including to Seattle, Munich and Brussels, it stated.
In addition to this, ANA and subsidiary Peach will boost domestic capacity within Japan, with ANA utilising bigger aircraft like the B777, which resumed operations internally last year.
In December, ANA celebrated seven years of flying between Sydney and Tokyo Haneda as well as 70 years of operations at an event at Sydney Airport.
More recently, OAG named ANA the world’s most punctual airline of 2022.