Vistara has announced a formal partnership agreement with Japan Airlines (JAL) and the appointment of Air System Inc. (ASI) as its General Sales Agent (GSA) in Japan. Coming soon after the appointment of a GSA for the GCC and establishment of an offline office in Dubai, these moves mark Vistara’s foray into another major international market.
Vistara offers the discerning leisure and business travellers from Japan a new flying experience within India, at par with the finest international standards offered by partner, JAL. The establishment of a presence in the Japanese market reaffirms Vistara’s focused growth plans to expand its customer base and widen its presence across international markets. In line with the rapid growth of India’s economy and strengthened relations between the two countries, air travel demand between Japan and India has also been growing strongly.
With JAL operating daily nonstop services between Tokyo (Narita) and Delhi, Vistara’s hub in Delhi IGI Terminal 3 offers JAL customers seamless connectivity to and from its network of 11 cities across India. With this agreement, JAL customers can initially avail the convenience of purchasing one ticket in Japan or India for combined itineraries on JAL and Vistara, and enjoy the fully international baggage allowances on Vistara’s domestic services in India.
Future enhancements could include inter-airline through check-in facilities, lounge access and codesharing. Further underlining its commitment to serve travellers from Japan, Vistara has also appointed Air System Inc. (ASI) as its General Sales Agent (GSA) in Japan. ASI will help expand Vistara’s presence in the Japanese market by providing reservations, ticketing and sales services directly in the country.
Phee Teik Yeoh, CEO, Vistara, highlighting the importance of the initiative, stated, “Japan is among the fastest growing travel markets in the world and the origin of significant business and leisure travel in India. Cities like Tokyo and Osaka account for the majority of traffic coming to India and this trend is expected to grow progressively with the strengthened cooperation between both countries. We are thrilled to have established a presence in Japan through the partnerships with Japan Airlines and ASI. With Vistara’s growing domestic network, we look forward to providing seamless connectivity for Japanese customers to and from various parts of India.”
In a span of nine months, Vistara has rapidly expanded its services with 293 weekly frequencies across 12 destinations in India, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Goa, Guwahati, Bagdogra, Bhubaneswar and Varanasi (with effect from October 21).
The coming months will witness the opening of Vistara’s signature lounge at T3 IGI Airport, addition of new aircraft, scaled up frequencies to existing destinations and introduction of the revolutionizing in-flight entertainment (IFE) system which wirelessly streams preloaded content to customers’ personal electronic devices.
