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Japanese Airline ANA Announces Low-Cost Carrier, Declares War on Bullet Trains

Where: Kansai International Airport, Osaka, Japan
September 9, 2010 at 5:58 PM | by | Comments (0)

The news out of Japan today is quite earthshaking for Asia travel: Japanese airline ANA is planning on starting Japan's first low-cost carrier. What does this mean? Well, Japan doesn't have domestic airlines that skimp on the small stuff and offer cheap fares like you find in America, Europe and Southeast Asia, so an LCC is bound to be big news.

As it stands right now, ANA's plan is to have the new airline based at Kansai International Airport, in Osaka. For it to successfully launch, many factors—like fuel prices and governmental cooperation—must fall into place and the Wall Street Journal argues that it is unlikely for this to occur anytime soon.

However, we are completely psyched about this. Totally. Utterly. More transportation options gets a gold star in our books, and we're anxious to see some new branding and service from an airline that already does it so well, but now on a more affordable level. Still there is the problem of putting a low-cost carrier up against Japan's famous bullet train system, the Shinkansen, which pretty much has the domestic travel market on lockdown. According to Stephen Frischling of Flying With Fish, the ticket prices for an LCC could be up to half the price of the Shinkansen: "Domestically ANA intends to launch its service with the high-traffic Kansai (KIX) – Tokyo/Narita (NRT) route, with fares starting around US$60 one-way, competing against the Central Japan Railway fares of US$168 one-way."

Oh. my. god. ANA's announcement of their LCC plans just began a huge battle, pitting fast train against fast plane. Who will win? What would you rather travel on? The Shinkansen for a $168 bullet train experience or $60 for a regular no-frills flight? Let us know in the comments!

[Photos: contri & kamoda]

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