Skift Travel News Blog

Japanese airline company All Nippon Airways (ANA) is preparing to launch its new airline Air Japan in February 2024, unveiling a brand positioning of affordability, comfort and diversity for its cabin crew. 

The medium-haul offering sits firmly between the full-service concept of carrier ANA and its low-cost airline Peach Aviation to meet travel demand from Southeast Asia to Japan. It will compete against Japan Airlines subsidiary, Zipair, which offers similar products. 

The airline company has yet to confirm routes and cities for the new airline but recently unveiled select products and services as part of its Fly Thoughtful brand concept.

The cabin will be configured with 324 economy class seats, a seat pitch of 32 inches and a recline feature. The seats won’t have monitors and are made of lightweight material, which is expected to add to its fuel efficiency.

In a push for diversity and inclusion, the company stated its cabin attendants’ uniforms are designed to “value the unique qualities” of its crew, reflecting gender neutrality. It will also be made in-part from plant-derived fabrics.

The Air Japan website is live, but ticket sales have yet to be opened. 

Indonesia’s leading online travel agency Traveloka will be receiving a fresh round of funding of $300 million from Indonesia Investment Authority — the newly-formed sovereign wealth fund of Indonesia, investment management agency — BlackRock, Allianz Global Investors, Orion Capital Asia and other global financial institutions.

The financing round is said to have attracted significant interest from a number of long-term capital providers, resulting in an oversubscribed transaction, according to an Indonesia Investment Authority release on Thursday.

A Skift article in June had mentioned that the online travel unicorn had been looking to raise over $200 million, having already raised a total of $1.2 billion in funding across six rounds.

The financing would allow Traveloka an opportunity to further strengthen its balance sheet and enable the online travel company to continue to focus on its core business while also building for the future, Ferry Unardi, CEO and co-founder of Traveloka, said.

The pandemic has heightened the expectation for digital products, Shirley Lesmana, chief marketing officer of Traveloka, had said while speaking at the Skift Global Forum in New York last week.

With online travel agencies in Indonesia seeing their share of gross tourism booking increase from 24 percent pre-pandemic to 33 percent in 2021, the expectation is to reach 36 percent by 2024, said Ridha Wirakusumah, CEO of Indonesia Investment Authority.

With the pandemic having accelerated digital transformation, the financing would support Traveloka’s digital ecosystem growth in the travel sector while allowing the company to grow further, the release from Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund stated.

“The financing aligns with Indonesia Investment Authority’s mission to create prosperity for Indonesia in the long term, by laying down the foundation for a sustainable digital ecosystem, including digital infrastructure, digital services and digital platforms — which will go a long way to drive economic recovery and growth,” Wirakusumah said.

Representatives from the financial institutions commended Traveloka’s resilience in navigating the Covid crisis and called the online travel company Indonesia’s national and regional champion and a key catalyst toward digitalization of travel and accommodation in the country and the region.