The non-stop route could resume in late March as ANA also looks to strengthen its partnership with Virgin Australia.
Japan’s ANA could resume its direct flights between Perth and Tokyo at the end of March, taking advantage of the continued demand for travel while also building upon its partnership with Virgin Australia.
The Perth-Tokyo route, which the Star Alliance airline launched in September 2019, has been suspended since the start of the worldwide pandemic in March 2020.
However, ANA is now preparing an update to its network based on the March 26 start of the ‘northern summer schedule’, and there are positive sings that Perth will make a welcome return.
This includes the recent appearance of several new codeshare flights out of Perth, operated by Virgin Australia but carrying an ANA flight number.
According to the Aeroroutes website, December 2022 saw ANA filing “new codeshare routes within Australia, focusing on various routes to/from Perth” from March 26.
These include Virgin Australia flights from Perth to Brisbane and Melbourne as well as the WA townships of Kalgoorlie, Newman and Port Hedland.
A spokesperson for ANA tells Executive Traveller that its northern summer schedule is expected to be announced “around the middle of this month.”
ANA’s previous Perth-Tokyo service flew an overnight schedule on the northbound leg, departing Perth at 9:45pm to reach Tokyo’s Narita airport at 8:25am the following day.
This meant the Tokyo-Perth leg was a daytime service, leaving Tokyo at 11:15am to land in Perth some 10 hours later at 8:15pm.
ANA previously relied on its workhorse Boeing 787 for the route, with lie-flat business class seats ahead of a small premium economy cabin.
At the time of writing ANA’s sole Australian route remains a daily flight between Sydney and Tokyo’s Haneda airport, with the second daily service – slated to launch in March 2020, but cancelled in the onset of Covid-19 – still pending.
Several of ANA’s longest international routes, such as those to London and New York, feature the flagship Boeing 777-300ER with the airline’s highly-regarded Qsuite-style The Room business class, crowded by an even-larger first class offering dubbed The Suite.
ANA is keen to continue developing its relationship with Virgin Australia, which it describes as having “the mutual goal of both airlines serving as the bridge between Australia and Japan with the highest levels of customer service and offering unique customer experiences in the two countries.”
This is expected to include reciprocal status benefits ranging from earning Velocity Points and status credits on selected ANA flights to redeeming Velocity Points on ANA flights, and enjoying status-based perks such as priority check-in, boarding and baggage handling for Velocity Golds and Platinum members, along with access to ANA’s business class airport lounges.
A likely launchpad for this will be the start of Virgin Australia’s new daily flights between Cairns and Tokyo from June 28.
Source ExecutiveTraveller.com