Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Solaseed Air to add more aircraft and routes in 2015.

Miyazaki (KMI/RJFM)-based Skynet Asia Airways (6J/SNJ), doing business as Solaseed Air, announced a revised Fiscal Years 2013 - 2015 Mid-Term Plan with less optimistic results. The company blamed the cost of fuel remaining high, a weak Japanese Yen (JPY), and increased competition.
Sporting Kumamoto prefecture's popular mascot, Boeing 737-81D(WL) JA802X Kumamon GO! taxies for departure at Haneda. (Photo: Ryosuke Yano)

Estimated total revenue by end of fiscal year 2015 was brought up from 3.5 billion JPY to 3.92 billion JPY, however, their target operating margin of 8% has been lowered to 4%, while their goal for unit cost per available seat kilometer (ASK) by 2015 became 7 JPY, instead of 8.5 JPY. The target figure for flight completion rate was kept at 99%, but on-time rate was lowered from 95% to 93%.

Meanwhile, their ninth brand-new Boeing 737, B737-86N(WL) JA809X, was delivered on March 28th. Two more will arrive this year, each in June and September, enabling them to phase out the last four B737-400s by October. Another will be delivered by April next year, bringing the fleet to 12 B737-800s. New routes are to be announced in the coming months, and the airline is said to be considering regional international routes to and from Nagasaki and Naha/Okinawa (OKA/ROAH).

Regional international routes... will they be able to find a niche in a type of market where LCCs can generally perform better and are increasing their presence in?

The B737 'Classics' are slowly being phased out from Japanese skies. I've written a report on one of their B737-400 flights (CoachFlyer 6J034: NGS - HND on Solaseed Air's Boeing 737.).

Source: Skynet Asia Airways, March 27th. (PDF; in Japanese)

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