Air Do

Air Do (エア・ドゥ, Ea Du), previously known[6] as Hokkaido International Airlines (北海道国際航空株式会社, Hokkaidō Kokusai Kōkū Kabushiki-gaisha), is a regional airline operating scheduled service between the islands of Honshu and Hokkaidō in cooperation with All Nippon Airways. It is headquartered in the Oak Sapporo Building (オーク札幌ビル, Ōku Sapporo Biru) in Chūō-ku, Sapporo,[5] and its main base of operations is Haneda Airport in Ōta, Tokyo.[7]

Air Do
IATA ICAO Callsign
HD ADO AIR DO
FoundedNovember 11, 1996 (1996-11-11)[1]
Commenced operationsDecember 20, 1998[1]
Operating basesNew Chitose Airport
Haneda Airport
Frequent-flyer programMy AIRDO[2]
Fleet size15
Destinations10 (Aug. 2015)[3]
Parent companyAIRDO Co., Ltd. (株式会社AIRDO)
HeadquartersSapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan
Key peopleSusumu Kusano, President[4]
Revenue ¥49 billion (FY 2014)[1]
Employees947 (April 1, 2017)[5]
Websiteairdo.jp
Headquarters

History

Hokkaido International Airlines was founded in 1996[1] by Teruo Hamada (浜田輝男, Hamada Teruo), an entrepreneur in Hokkaidō, shortly after the Japanese government approved a domestic airline deregulation 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 to compete with Japan's major domestic carriers (All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines, and Japan Air System) on flights between Hokkaido cities and Tokyo. Additional capital was raised from Kyocera, Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance, Hokkaido Electric Power Company 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 manager of Virgin Atlantic Airways. Maintenance and ground handling services were outsourced to Japan Airlines. 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%. The Hokkaido prefectural government injected more capital in 2000 and installed one of its senior officials as head of the company. After being harder hit financially in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, 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 investment fund arranged by the Development Bank of Japan, in which All Nippon Airways was a key investor. This began a number of business relationships between Air Do and ANA, including ANA code sharing 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.

The company changed its name to Air Do in October 2012.[6]

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 moved to eliminate its lowest-yielding routes to Niigata, Toyama, Fukushima and Komatsu.[8]

Destinations
Hokkaido International Airlines 767-300
Former Hokkaido International Airlines 737-500

Air Do operates services to the following domestic scheduled destinations from Tokyo (to Hokkaido) and Sapporo (to Honshu):[3]

Region City IATA ICAO Airport Notes
HokkaidoAsahikawaAKJRJECAsahikawa Airport
HokkaidoHakodateHKDRJCHHakodate Airport
HonshuHiroshimaHIJRJOAHiroshima AirportTerminated
HonshuKobeUKBRJBEKobe Airport
HokkaidoKushiroKUHRJCKKushiro Airport
HonshuNagoyaNGORJGGChubu Centrair International Airport
HokkaidoObihiroOBORJCBTokachi–Obihiro Airport
HonshuOkayamaOKJRJOBOkayama AirportTerminated
HokkaidoŌzoraMMBRJCMMemanbetsu Airport
HokkaidoSapporoCTSRJCCNew Chitose AirportHub
HonshuSendaiSDJRJSSSendai Airport
HonshuTokyoHNDRJTTHaneda AirportHub

Fleet

Current Fleet

The Air Do fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of December 2019):[9]

Air Do Fleet
Aircraft In Fleet Orders Passengers
Boeing 737-700 8 0 144
Boeing 767-300 2 0 270
Boeing 767-300ER 4 0 286
Total 14 0

Former Fleet

The airline previously operated the following aircraft as of September 2018:[10]

Air Do Retired Fleet
Aircraft Total Introduced Retired Notes
Boeing 737-400 2 2005 2009
Boeing 737-500 7 2008 2016
Boeing 767-200 1 2003 2005
Boeing 767-300 2 2005 2016

References
  1. "沿革". Air Do. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
  2. "My AIRDO". Air Do. Archived from the original on 2015-10-13. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
  3. "時刻表". Air Do. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
  4. "Air do appoints new president and CEO | CAPA".
  5. "会社概要". Air Do. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
  6. エア・ドウ、社名もAIRDOに統一. Aviationwire.jp. Retrieved on 2013-08-16.
  7. "Directory: World Airlines". Flight International. 2007-03-27. pp. 55–56.
  8. "エア・ドゥ、４路線から撤退検討". Nihon Keizai Shimbun. 16 January 2015. Retrieved 19 January 2015.
  9. "Air Do Fleet Details and History". Planespotters.net. 21 March 2019. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  10. "Global Airline Guide 2016 (Part One)". Airliner World (October 2016): 18.
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