, previously known as , is a Japanese regional airline headquartered in Sapporo, Japan. It operates scheduled service between the islands of

Honshu , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island s ...

and

Hokkaido is Japan, Japan's Japanese archipelago, second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost Prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own List of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; th ...

in cooperation with

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 m ...

, from its hubs at

New Chitose Airport is an international airport located south-southeast of Chitose and Tomakomai, Hokkaidō, Japan, serving the Sapporo metropolitan area. By both traffic and land area, it is the largest airport in Hokkaidō. It is adjacent to Chitose Air Ba ...

in Sapporo and

Haneda Airport , officially , and sometimes called as Tokyo Haneda Airport or Haneda International Airport , is one of two international airports serving the Greater Tokyo Area, the other one being Narita International Airport (NRT). It serves as the primary ...

in Tokyo.

History

The airline was founded as Hokkaido International Airlines in 1996 by , an entrepreneur in Hokkaido, shortly after the Japanese government approved a domestic

airline deregulation Airline deregulation is the process of removing government-imposed entry and price restrictions on airlines affecting, in particular, the carriers permitted to serve specific routes. In the United States, the term usually applies to the Airline Der ...

policy that would allow carriers to freely set fares on domestic routes. Hamada gathered investments from 29 other individuals who were interested in establishing a

low-cost airline 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 ...

to compete with Japan's major domestic carriers (

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 ...

, and

Japan Air System was the smallest of the big three Japanese airlines. In contrast to the other two, JAL and ANA, JAS' international route network was very small, but its domestic network incorporated many smaller airports that were not served by the two large ...

) on flights between Hokkaido cities and Tokyo. Additional capital was raised from

Kyocera is a Japanese multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. It manufactures industrial ceramics, solar power generating systems, telecommunic ...

, Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance,

Hokkaido Electric Power Company The (), or for short, is the monopoly electric company of Hokkaidō, Japan. It is also known as Dōden and HEPCO. The company is traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (first section), Osaka Securities Exchange (first section), and Sapporo Securit ...

and other institutional investors, as well as from Hokkaido local governments seeking less expensive air service to Tokyo. The company started flight operations on the Tokyo-Sapporo route, using the Air Do brand, in December 1998. Its first CEO was the former Japan-based manager of

Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic Airways, and ...

. Maintenance and ground handling services were outsourced to

. Air Do enjoyed very high load factors during its first few months of operation, as its fares were 60% to 70% of the walk-up fares offered by established airlines. However, other airlines quickly adopted their own discounted advance purchase fares in the wake of Air Do's initial success, driving load factors down to around 50%. In 2000, The Hokkaido prefectural government injected more capital and installed one of its senior officials as head of the company. After being significantly impacted financially in the aftermath of the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, and being denied additional financing from the Hokkaido prefectural government, Air Do entered Japanese corporate restructuring procedures in June 2002. Air Do received new equity capital from a ''

tokumei kumiai , literally "anonymous partnerships," are a Japanese bilateral contract governed by the Commercial Code of Japan, Article 535 ''et seq''. In English, they are often called TK or silent partnerships. In many respects they are similar to common law ...

'' investment fund arranged by the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ), in which

was a key investor. This began a number of business relationships between Air Do and ANA, including ANA

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 communicati ...

on Air Do operated flights and Air Do leasing additional 767 and 737 aircraft from ANA. The fund was dissolved in September 2008 and DBJ, ANA and other investors became direct shareholders in Air Do. On October 1, 2012, the company's legal name was changed from Hokkaido International Airlines Co., Ltd. to AIRDO Co., Ltd. Air Do was sanctioned by the Japanese government in December 2014 for promoting a first officer to captain despite poor performance in training. Following the business improvement order, Air Do in January 2015 moved to eliminate its lowest-yielding routes to Niigata, Toyama, Fukushima and Komatsu. In May 2021, Air Do and Solaseed Air announced their intentions to merge as a result of operating difficulties during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. In July 2021, Air Do shareholders approved a proposal to issue US$63.2 million of preferred shares to improve finances prior to the business integration. The new holding company for both airlines, RegionalPlus Wings, was officially established on October 3, 2022.

Corporate affairs

The airline's headquarters are located in the in Chūō-ku,

Sapporo ( ain, サッ・ポロ・ペッ, Satporopet, lit=Dry, Great River) is a city in Japan. It is the largest city north of Tokyo and the largest city on Hokkaido, the northernmost main island of the country. It ranks as the fifth most populous city ...

. The company's president is Susumu Kusano, who was appointed to the position on June 27, 2019.

Destinations

Over its history, Air Do has operated scheduled services to the following destinations in Japan :

Codeshare agreements

Air Do has a

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 ...

with

Fleet

Current fleet

The Air Do fleet consists of the following aircraft :

Former fleet

Boeing 737-500 (Hokkaido International Airlines) 8595

The airline previously operated the following aircraft types:

Frequent-flyer program

Air Do operates a

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 ...

called ''My AIRDO''. Points under the program are accrued based on the fare amount when purchasing tickets for travel with the airline, with registration to join the program available for Japanese residents.

References

External links

Official websiteOfficial website
{{Airlines of Japan Regional airlines of Japan Airlines established in 1996 Japanese companies established in 1996 Low-cost carriers Companies based in Sapporo Japanese brands Transport in Hokkaido