The Air Japan Announcement and What It Means For Air Japan (AJX) Pilots

The announcement has unfortunately caused some unnecessary speculation. The news services are saying that the “Air Japan brand operation” will cease in March 2026. The casual reader will assume that is the end of Air Japan. It is not.

The easiest way to explain this is to simply say that the paint job currently on the 3 existing AJX aircraft will change back to the classic ANA blue and white, just like it was pre-Covid. The company will continue to exist as an ANA subsidiary and it will operate as it did pre-Covid, flying a few of its own assigned routes and also flying wet lease flights for ANA.

There is no bankruptcy, no flight crew downsizing, no slowdown in recruiting or recalling. The growth of Air Japan will continue, but instead of some new brand entity, the airplanes will fly the well-known colors of ANA blue and white. The idea of creating a new brand using Air Japan just didn’t work and we’re going back to the old Air Japan model.

As you may know, after Covid, domestic travel in Japan has been weak and the good results that ANA has had are due to the very strong international travel market. ANA is very much focused on this international market. Before Covid, AJX was responsible for flying 20% of all ANA international flights. ANA needs AJX to continue to grow the international travel market, so AJX is a critical element in ANA’s future plans, it just doesn’t need to have its own separate brand identity.

What does all this mean to the pilots? Except for the paint scheme changing, things will look pretty much the same for AJX flight crews. Just like before, sometimes the call sign will be All Nippon and sometimes it will be Air Japan. The expansion continues, just with a different paint job.

Captain Frank Tabata

President

Crew Resources Worldwide L.L.C.