Air Transport

Japanese dedicated express freight carrier Galaxy Airlines looks set to announce in the coming days that it will be halting operations as a result of financial losses.

The Nikkei news agency reports that Galaxy will be suspending services on its four domestic routes by October.

A representative in the airline’s head office was not able to provide any information about the expected grounding, saying no company officials were available for comment. She would only say that the airline is still operating flights on all four of its domestic routes.

Representatives of the airline’s majority owner, express parcel delivery and logistics company Sagawa Express, also could not immediately be reached for comment.

Galaxy started operating in 2006. In addition to majority owner Sagawa, it has several minority shareholders including codeshare partner Japan Airlines (JAL), which owns 10%.

A JAL spokesman says from Tokyo that there have been no official communications from Galaxy regarding the grounding report but he adds that JAL expects Galaxy “to inform us of the situation in the coming days”.

Galaxy launched operations in October 2006 with a leased Airbus A300-600F that had been converted from passenger configuration. Soon after its launch it took delivery of a new-build A300-600F directly from Airbus.

The carrier operates six weekly round-trip services on each of its four domestic routes: Osaka Kansai-Sapporo New Chitose; Tokyo Haneda-Sapporo New Chitose; Tokyo Haneda-Kitakyushu; and Tokyo Haneda-Naha. It said at the time of its launch that it also hoped to operate international services to nearby countries such as China.

Source: flightglobal.com's sister premium news site Air Transport Intelligence news