Story ID: GPairasiajapan10052020
AirAsia Japan Ceases Operations
By: Gregory Polek
Caption: After a “thorough business review,” AirAsia Group decided to pull the plug on its Japanese subsidiary. 
Word Count: 257
AirAsia Japan ceased operations on Monday, after parent company AirAsia Group reached a decision to stem its losses due to Covid-19 effects. The smallest of AirAsia’s subsidiaries, AirAsia Japan has seen operations shrink to an unsustainable level since the onset of the pandemic early this year, as travel restrictions and the uncertainties they have created prompted the airline to severely curtain operations and ground aircraft.   

Since its incorporation in July 2014, the Company operated domestic and international flights from its base in Chubu Centrair International Airport.

“Despite our unrelenting efforts to sustain operations through successive and wide-ranging cost reduction initiatives, we have concluded that it would be an extremely challenging feat for us to continue operating without any visibility and certainty of a post-pandemic recovery path,” explained AirAsia Japan representative director and COO Jun Aida.

“I would like to express our deepest gratitude and appreciation to our loyal guests and other stakeholders who have supported us all along. This painful decision to cease operations was decided neither in haste nor taken lightly. It was agreed upon after conducting a thorough business review.” 

The cessation affects only the domestic and international flights operated by AAJ in Japan with letter code DJ and does not affect flights into and out of Japan operated by other airlines within the AirAsia Group. International services to Japan, from Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines will resume in the future after travel restrictions are lifted and borders with Japan are reopened, concluded the group.