J-Air is a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's flag carrier, Japan Airlines (JAL) and an affiliate member of the Oneworld alliance. The airline was founded on 8 August 1996, when JAL restructured JAL Flight Academy and J-Air was separated; and began operations as a separate entity from Hiroshima-Nishi Airport on 1 November. Faced with limited opportunities for route expansion at Hiroshima, the airline relocated to its new home at Nagoya Airfield, after the opening of Chūbu Centrair International Airport, on 17 February 2005. In the fiscal year ended 31 March 1999, J-Air, together with its sister airlines within the JAL Group, carried over 32 million passengers and over 1.1 million tons of cargo and mail.[citation needed]
History
JAL Flight Academy (JFA) was established by Japan Airlines (JAL) in April 1991, as a flight training school subsidiary based at Omura Airport, Nagasaki. It provided conversion training for its flight engineers to become pilots. In April 1991, a new division of JFA was created to operate scheduled services to succeed the troubled Nishi Seto Airlink services, a commuter airline serving cities in western Japan. Since the introduction of the 19-seats Jetstream 31s (JS31) in September 1991, the aircraft progressively replaced the Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante inherited from Nishi Seto.[3][4][5]
In August 1996, JAL Flight Academy was restructured, J-Air was separated and established as a wholly owned regional subsidiary airline of Japan Airlines on 8 August. On 1 November, the airline inaugurated its first flight from Hiroshima-Nishi Airport and was building up service on smaller-demand domestic routes, which larger aircraft could not serve economically. However, the local governmentsubsidy was terminated at the end of the 2000 fiscal year and the airline was required to become self-sufficient. As part of its domestic marketing strategy, JAL found a niche market where the 100-plus-seats Boeing 737s were too large and frequent services were in demand, and began repositioning the airline. Fifty-seats Bombardier CRJ200s were introduced and progressively replaced the five JS31s until completion in August 2003.[3][4][6]
Despite the introduction of the CRJ200s, there were limited opportunities for route expansion from its home at Hiroshima-Nishi Airport. The airline decided to move to Nagoya Airfield, after the opening of Chūbu Centrair International Airport. On 17 February 2005, J-Air formally relocate to its new home at Nagoya Airfield. In order to strengthen the recognition of the JAL brand and improve customer convenience, the airline disposed its own flight numbers and changed to JAL flight numbers from 1 April 2005. At the same time, it formally ended flight to Hiroshima-Nishi which has been the airline base for almost 9 years with the last flight to Miyazaki.[4][7]
On 1 April 2007, J-Air, together with four of its sister airlines within the JAL Group, joined Oneworld and became a Oneworld affiliate member.[8] On 18 June, JAL signed a purchase agreement with Embraer for ten Embraer 170 jets, with options to acquire another five aircraft. The contract value was worth approximately US$435 million, if all the options are exercised. The aircraft will be used for linking tier-two and tier-three cities in Japan as to bypass the airline's congested hub in Tokyo. The aircraft was configured to seat 76 passengers in a single-class layout and was designated for J-Air.[9][10] The first aircraft was delivered on 3 October 2008, received the type certification from the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) on 27 October and operated its first flight in February 2009.[11][12][13]
J-Air has been reported by Japanese newspapers and television to be leaving Nagoya Airfield in a phased transition with many flights leaving October 2010 and all flights leaving by end of March 2011.
J-Air had many liveries over the years. In the following order:
1991 to 2002: J-AIR livery
A fusion of the J-AIR letters with a red square separating the 'J' and the 'AIR' titles, and a grey band feature on the fuselage.
2002 to 2011: Arc of the Sun livery
After Japan Airlines (JAL) and Japan Air System (JAS) merged, the Tokyo office of Landor and JAL worked together again to create a new brand identity. Landor devised a livery referred to as the "Arc of the Sun". The 2000s rebranding began in April 2002 and was completed in April 2004. The brand identity firm designed 300,000 specific items for JAL. The JAL acronym remained, but it was changed to include a curved bar, which replaced the simple red square and gray rectangle used from 1989 (1991 For J-AIR). The curved bar was likened to a samurai sword. The tail now featured a quarter sun outlined in silver. JAL changed its branding again on 1 April 2011, reverting to the original 1959 brand, with slight modifications, as part of their post-bankruptcy rebrand.
2011-Present: Tsurumaru J-Air livery
The J-Air livery is called the tsurumaru (鶴丸) or "crane circle." It is an image of a Japanese red-crown crane with its wings extended in full flight. The Tsurumaru logo of its parent (Japan Airlines) was created in 1958 by Jerry Huff, the creative director at Botsford, Constantine and Gardner of San Francisco, which had been the advertising agency for Japan Airlines from its earliest days.
Gallery
Showing what J-Air (in Japanese) calls or called the aircraft. Also, the liveries are in order.[Note 2]
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