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 government subsidy 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.
