Peach (airline)

Peach Aviation (ピーチ・アビエーション 株式会社), operating under the brand name Peach is a low-cost airline based in Japan. Its head office is on the fifth floor of Kensetsu-to (建設棟) on the property of Kansai International Airport in Izumisano, Osaka Prefecture.

Peach has hubs at Kansai International Airport in Osaka and at Naha Airport in Okinawa. In the spring of 2015, the airline planned to open a third hub at Narita International Airport in order to serve the Greater Tokyo Area.

History
Peach was formed in February 2011 as A&F Aviation, a joint venture between All Nippon Airways (ANA) and the First Eastern Investment Group, a Hong Kong-based private equity and venture capital firm. The company applied for an operating certificate in April 2011 and changed its name to Peach Aviation in May 2011. Its shares are held in almost equal portions by ANA, FEIG, and the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), ANA holding a slightly larger share of the three.

Peach’s brand development was conducted by CIA, Inc. / The Brand Architect Group who engaged Neil Denari, for aircraft livery design and James Wilkie for uniform design. The airline is based at Kansai International Airport. In July 2011, Peach received 1,909 applications for its first class of ninety flight attendants.

At one time, its headquarters were located on the third floor of Aeroplaza (エアロプラザ), located on the property of Kansai International Airport in Tajiri, Sennan District, Osaka Prefecture. On 1 August 2011, Peach announced that it was moving its operations office from Aeroplaza to Kensetsu-to.

The airline's first flight was on 1 March 2012, between Kansai and New Chitose Airport, which serves the Sapporo metropolitan area.

Peach was the most successful of the three new Japanese low-cost carriers during their first year of operations, with average load factors around 80 percent versus 70 percent for Jetstar Japan and 50 to 60 percent for AirAsia Japan. Peach's 24-hour operations and exclusive terminal at Kansai Airport were credited for its relative success, as well as its stronger focus on certain passenger experience factors such as its reservations and check-in systems.

Peach cancelled over 2,000 planned flights for the summer 2014 season (about 16% of its total capacity) due to a shortage of pilots. The airline planned to have 62 pilots by October 2014 but only had 52 as of April, eight of whom were sick or injured and unable to fly. Loss of pilots to other airlines was a cause for the shortage. It was later reported that Peach would consider allowing its pilots to commute from Haneda Airport to Kansai Airport on other airlines, a practice rarely allowed in Japan, in order to attract candidates who are unwilling to relocate to Osaka.

Destinations
Peach offers service to the following destinations:

Future destinations
CEO Shinichi Inoue (井上 慎一) commented in May 2011 that the airline planned to serve the resort markets of Guam and Saipan. Inoue also mentioned the possibility of Peach using less congested secondary airports to serve certain cities, such as using Saga Airport or Kitakyushu Airport to serve Fukuoka. The airline has also had plans to launch flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou in China.

In early 2015, Peach was considering new hubs in Seoul, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Tokyo and Sapporo, as well as flights between its Okinawa hub and destinations in Southeast Asia.

Fleet
As of November 2016 the Peach fleet consists of the following aircraft:

Peach's first Airbus A320 was delivered to its home base at Kansai International Airport in November 2011. Peach has two named aircraft. Its first A320 was named Peach Dream; its tenth A320 was named Wing of Tohoku following a contest in which sixty elementary school students from the Tohoku region submitted proposals.

Accidents and incidents

 * On 28 April 2014, a Peach flight from New Ishigaki Airport to Naha Airport descended to an altitude of 248 feet above the ocean, after its pilot misunderstood instructions from air traffic control. The aircraft's ground proximity warning system alerted the pilot to the low altitude, and it then landed safely at Naha.