(), styled as StarFlyer, is a Japanese airline headquartered on the grounds of

Kitakyushu Airport , sometimes called Kokuraminami Airport, is an airport in Kokuraminami-ku, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan. It is built on an artificial island in the western Seto Inland Sea, away from the main body of the city. It opened on 16 March 2006, as but ...

Kokuraminami-ku, Kitakyūshū is a ward of Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka, Japan. It is the southern part of what used to be Kokura City, which was merged into Kitakyūshū city when the latter was created out of the merger of five cities in 1963. At this time Kokura was divided int ...

Fukuoka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Fukuoka Prefecture has a population of 5,109,323 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,986 Square kilometre, km2 (1,925 sq mi). Fukuoka Prefecture borders S ...

. It describes itself as a "hybrid airline" providing a higher level of service than

low-cost carrier A low-cost carrier or low-cost airline (occasionally referred to as '' no-frills'', ''budget'' or '' discount carrier'' or ''airline'', and abbreviated as ''LCC'') is an airline that is operated with an especially high emphasis on minimizing op ...

s while having operating costs lower than full-service legacy carriers. Although the airline's IATA code is 7G, domestically it has also used the code MQ (which is designed outside Japan by the IATA to

Envoy Air Envoy Air Inc. is an American regional airline headquartered in Irving, Texas, in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The airline is a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Airlines Group and it is paid by fellow group member American Airl ...

) for its flights.

History

StarFlyer was founded as on December 17, 2002 with the intention of being based at the new

Kobe Airport is an airport on an artificial island just off the coast of Kobe, south of Sannomiya StationAIS Japan

The airline was founded by former

Japan Airlines , also known as JAL (''Jaru'') or , is an international airline and Japan's flag carrier and largest airline as of 2021 and 2022, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its main hubs are Tokyo's Narita International Airport and Haneda Airport, as w ...

technician Takaaki Hori and former

All Nippon Airways , also known as ANA (''Ē-enu-ē'') or is an airline in Japan. Its headquarters are located in Shiodome City Center in the Shiodome area of Minato ward of Tokyo. It operates services to both domestic and international destinations and had mo ...

executive Yasushi Muto, who respectively served as president and senior vice president of the company until 2009. Its headquarters were initially in the in Kokura Kita-ku, Kitakyūshū; in 2010 the airline announced that the headquarters would move to

. StarFlyer began service upon the opening of New Kitakyushu Airport on March 16, 2006.

(ANA) began an operational relationship with StarFlyer in 2005, allowing StarFlyer to use its computerized reservations system. This relationship expanded to

code sharing In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

in 2007, under which StarFlyer service between Haneda and Kitakyushu (and later between Haneda and Fukuoka) was marketed under ANA's airline code. The code sharing immediately boosted StarFlyer's load factors from 59% to over 70%. In April 2008, the company announced that it would begin charter flights to Seoul in July. The airline said it would evaluate the flights to consider whether to start regular service between the two cities (in the meantime, its call center handled reservations for

Jeju Air Jeju Air Co., Ltd. (), is the first and largest South Korean low-cost airline. It offers scheduled domestic services, as well as international destinations including China, Japan, Russia, the Mariana Islands, and various Southeast Asian countries ...

on this route). In addition, it had also prepared to start charter service to Hong Kong. StarFlyer operated packaged tour charter flights from Kitakyushu to

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

in August 2013 with an aim to provide more "program charter" services in the future. StarFlyer initially planned an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

(IPO) in fiscal year 2008, but poor financial and operating performance delayed the IPO; among other issues, the airline failed to use appropriate

fuel hedging Fuel hedging is a contractual tool some large fuel consuming companies, such as airlines, cruise lines and trucking companies, use to reduce their exposure to volatile and potentially rising fuel costs. A fuel hedge contract is a futures contract ...

to control its costs, and also had limited ability to raise capital. Hori and Muto resigned from their positions in June 2009, and Shinichi Yonehara, a former Mitsui & Co. aircraft trading executive, became president of the company. Under Yonehara's leadership, the airline completed its IPO on the

Tokyo Stock Exchange The , abbreviated as Tosho () or TSE/TYO, is a stock exchange located in Tokyo, Japan. It is the third largest stock exchange in the world by aggregate market capitalization of its listed companies, and the largest in Asia. It had 2,292 listed co ...

in December 2011. The airline suffered a massive cancellation following the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami The occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 March. The magnitude 9.0–9.1 (M) undersea megathrust earthquake had an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region, and lasted approximately six minutes ...

, as 13 of its 29 pilots at the time were non-Japanese, and seven of them were overseas and had refused or were unable to return to Japan. In December 2012, ANA announced that it had acquired an 18% stake in StarFlyer, making it the largest shareholder in the airline. In 2013, StarFlyer announced that it would start service between Fukuoka and

Kansai International Airport Kansai International Airport ( ja, 関西国際空港, Kansai Kokusai Kūkō) commonly known as is the primary international airport in the Greater Osaka Area of Japan and the closest international airport to the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and K ...

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

, targeting business travelers on a highly competitive city pair where the

Sanyo Shinkansen , stylized as SANYO, is a Japanese electronics company and formerly a member of the Fortune Global 500, ''Fortune'' Global 500 whose headquarters was located in Moriguchi, Osaka, Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo had over 230 subsidiari ...

high-speed rail service has a market share of around 80%. StarFlyer announced that it would offer discount fares starting at 4,500 yen to compete with both rail service and the discount airline

Peach The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and cultivated in Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and others (the glossy-skinned, non-fu ...

. StarFlyer announced a restructuring in November 2013, as part of which it would cut 30 of its employees, suspend its service to Busan effective March 30, 2014, and reduce its fleet from eleven to nine aircraft. StarFlyer was also considering raising fares on its key domestic routes from Haneda to Kitakyushu and Fukuoka. Three years after its last scheduled international flights to South Korea, StarFlyer in October 2017 announced the relaunch of international services with flights to

Taoyuan International Airport Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is an international airport serving Taipei and northern Taiwan. Located about west of Taipei in Dayuan District, Taoyuan, the airport is Taiwan's largest. It was also the busiest airport in Taiwan before t ...

in Taiwan from Fukuoka, Kitakyushu, and Nagoya Centrair to begin the following year in October 2018. While the plans for flights between Taiwan and Fukuoka were dropped prior to launch, services between Taiwan and both Kitakyushu and Nagoya Centrair proceeded to begin on October 28, 2018.

Corporate affairs

ANA Holdings , also known as ANA (''Ē-enu-ē'') or is an airline in Japan. Its headquarters are located in Shiodome City Center in the Shiodome area of Minato ward of Tokyo. It operates services to both domestic and international destinations and had mo ...

is the largest shareholder in the company with a 17.96% stake, and several companies that have major operations in the northern Kyushu region are also significant shareholders, including TOTO,

Yaskawa Electric Corporation The is a Japanese manufacturer of servos, motion controllers, AC motor drives, switches and industrial robots. Their Motoman robots are heavy duty industrial robots used in welding, packaging, assembly, coating, cutting, material handling and ...

Kyushu Electric Power Company (, OSE: 9508, ) is a Japanese energy company that provides power to 7 prefectures (Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Ōita, Saga, Miyazaki, Kumamoto, Kagoshima), and recently, to some parts of Hiroshima Prefecture. Its shortened name of is sometimes us ...

and

Nissan Motor Company , trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the Nissan, Infiniti, and Datsun brands, ...

. Kitakyushu Bank has a credit card mileage partnership with StarFlyer.

Yamaguchi Financial Group Yamaguchi may refer to: People *Yamaguchi (surname), the 14th most popular Japanese surname. Places *Yamaguchi Prefecture, the westernmost prefecture of Honshū island of Japan **Yamaguchi (city), capital of Yamaguchi Prefecture ***Yamaguchi Sta ...

, the parent company of Kitakyushu Bank, made publicized efforts to support StarFlyer's Busan service by approaching businesses, tourism organizations and Japanese expatriate groups in the Busan region. StarFlyer provides ground handling services for

Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines, Inc., typically referred to as Delta, is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. One of the List of airlines by foundation date, world's oldest airlines in operation, Delta is headquartered in Atla ...

at Haneda Airport in Tokyo.

Destinations

Scheduled

StarFlyer has operated scheduled services to the following destinations :

Charter

StarFlyer has also operated charter services to the following destinations:

Codeshare agreements

StarFlyer has

codeshare agreement A codeshare agreement, also known simply as codeshare, is a business arrangement, common in the aviation industry, in which two or more airlines publish and market the same flight under their own airline designator and flight number (the "airli ...

s with the following airlines: *

Solaseed Air is a Japanese regional airline headquartered on the property of Miyazaki Airport in Miyazaki, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan. It operates services mainly between Tokyo and destinations on the island of Kyushu. History The airline was established ...

Fleet

The StarFlyer fleet consists of the following aircraft :

Fleet development

Most of the StarFlyer A320 fleet is leased from

GECAS GECAS (GE Capital Aviation Services) was an Irish–American commercial aviation financing and leasing company. AerCap acquired the company from GE Capital on November 1, 2021. GECAS was the largest commercial airline leasing/financing company in ...

and AWAS, but the airline purchased three A320s to replace older leased aircraft; JA01MC was retired on April 30, 2014 to bring its fleet to a total of ten aircraft, of which five aircraft were to be leased in the future. In October 2020, StarFlyer announced the leasing of up to five A320neo aircraft from

SMBC Aviation Capital SMBC Aviation Capital, formerly RBS Aviation Capital, is one of the world's largest aircraft leasing companies. It is owned by a consortium of leading Japanese institutions: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), Sumitomo Mitsui Finance an ...

, with deliveries beginning in January 2023 in order to replace older A320-200 aircraft, and the agreement expected to be completed by February 2021.

Livery

The company's black and white

aircraft livery An aircraft livery is a set of comprehensive insignia comprising color, graphic, and typographical identifiers which operators (airlines, governments, air forces and occasionally private and corporate owners) apply to their aircraft. As aircraft ...

and corporate branding were designed under the art direction of Tatsuya Matsui, a noted robot designer, in conjunction with SGI Japan. Matsui based the airline's brand identity around the concept of a "Mother Comet" taking passengers through space to their destination. His design work extended to aircraft interiors, airport facilities and in-flight service implements, including the airline's signature leather seats and chocolates. Additionally, parts of the livery feature inverted color schemes relative to the opposing side of the aircraft. On the aircraft's left-hand side, the

vertical stabilizer A vertical stabilizer or tail fin is the static part of the vertical tail of an aircraft. The term is commonly applied to the assembly of both this fixed surface and one or more movable rudders hinged to it. Their role is to provide control, sta ...

(tail fin) and wingtip are colored in solid black, with the airline's tail fin logo colored in white. Inversely on the aircraft's right-hand side, the tail fin and wingtip are colored in solid white, with the airline's tail fin logo colored in black.

Cabin and services

StarFlyer's Airbus A320 aircraft are equipped with 150 seats in an all

economy class Economy class, also called third class, coach class, steerage, or to distinguish it from the slightly more expensive premium economy class, standard economy class or budget economy class, is the lowest travel class of seating in air travel, rail ...

cabin layout, offering of pitch. Each seat is equipped with a Panasonic Avionics

in-flight entertainment In-flight entertainment (IFE) refers to the entertainment available to aircraft passengers during a flight. In 1936, the airship ''LZ 129 Hindenburg, Hindenburg'' offered passengers a piano, lounge, dining room, smoking room, and bar during the ...

touchscreen system, with older aircraft equipped with a screen offering a range of television or audio channels running on a schedule, and newer aircraft equipped with a larger screen offering audio and

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

(AVOD). Seats are equipped both with USB ports and traditional electrical sockets for charging devices. On all flights, the airline offers a traditional refreshment cart service consisting of complimentary and surcharged options. On international flights, the airline offers complimentary meal services. StarFlyer also offers a selection of in-flight shopping goods for purchase, rental services for amenities such as blankets and auxiliary device chargers, as well as services for families with small children.

Frequent-flyer program

StarFlyer's

frequent-flyer program A frequent-flyer program (American English) or frequent-flyer programme (British English) is a loyalty program offered by an airline. Many airlines have frequent-flyer programs designed to encourage airline customers enrolled in the program ...

is ''Star Link'', a distance-based accrual program through which passengers can earn miles based on the route length of StarFlyer flights.