ANA Rescues Struggling Japanese Low-cost Carrier Skymark

All Nippon Airways Holdings will participate in a rescue plan for bankrupt Japanese budget airline Skymark under the terms of a memorandum of understanding executed on Wednesday. The MOU calls for ANA and another investor, Japanese private investment fund Integral Corporation, to inject an 18 billion yen ($150 million) capital investment for payment of debts. Integral would hold a 50.1-percent stake in company while ANA takes a maximum of 19.9 percent, leaving the rest to “other entities.”

The sides have agreed to pursue a plan to re-list Skymark on the Nikkei stock market within five years. They have also promised to maintain employment at Skymark “as a general principle.”

Skymark filed for bankruptcy in January, some six months after Airbus canceled an order for four Airbus A380s due to the airline’s inability to raise the cash to pay for delivery installments. Airbus subsequently filed a lawsuit to collect on a reported 70 billion yen ($580 million) penalty for breach of contract.  

Launched in 1998, Skymark started operations with Boeing 767s but by 2009 had phased out the twin-aisle jets in favor of an all Boeing 737 fleet in an effort to challenge ANA and Japan Airlines on low-yield domestic services. However, Skymark began to feel more competitive pressure itself as other low fare airlines began infiltrating the Japanese domestic market in 2012. In response, it signed lease deals on seven Airbus A330s and planned to outfit them in a single-class, premium-seat configuration in an effort to win market share among domestic business travelers. That same year severe pressure on the value of the yen to the U.S. dollar effectively began to raise Skymark’s lease costs while its domestic ticket revenue—collected in yen—failed to keep pace.

By the time it launched A330 service in June 2014, Skymark had begun hemorrhaging cash regularly, leaving it in no position to take delivery of its A380s under the original terms of its agreement with Airbus. A month later Airbus announced it had canceled Skymark’s A380 order and soon afterward filed suit for penalty payments, marking the start of the airline’s accelerated spiral into bankruptcy.