Japan's airlines plot path to profitability – part 1: ANA recovery gathers steam

While Japan has moved more slowly than many other Asia-Pacific countries to reopen its borders, it is now taking important steps to ease border restrictions. The expected demand boost means Japan's major airlines can see a path back to profitability for the current fiscal year.

Foreign travellers have generally been barred from entering Japan since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. This prohibition was removed in early Apr-2022, but effectively only business travellers and students could enter, whereas foreign leisure travellers were still excluded.

Now the Japanese government has signalled that it will allow vaccinated tourists to enter without quarantine from Jun-2022. This will obviously be significant for Japan Airlines (JAL) and All Nippon Airways (ANA), as well as the country's tourist industry. Domestic capacity has already rebounded well, and now the airlines are beginning to ramp up their international services again as they prepare for overseas demand to return.

In this first part of this feature we consider market trends and ANA's recovery.