Aircraft

Japan Airlines (JAL) has taken delivery of its first Embraer 170 regional jet and will be putting it into service early next year after carrying out crew training for several months.

The Oneworld alliance carrier took delivery of the aircraft at a ceremony at Embraer's headquarters in Brazil on 3 October. It is the first of 10 that the airline has on firm order and the first E-170 that will be operated by a Japanese airline.

A JAL spokesman says from Tokyo that the aircraft will arrive in Japan in the coming weeks, after which it will be used for crew training. He says it is due to go into service on domestic routes in February.

The 76-seat aircraft will be used by JAL's J-Air subsidiary, which is based at Nagoya's secondary Komaki airport.

Its E-170s are expected to initially be operated primarily out of Komaki but are expected to be used on flights out of Tokyo Haneda airport from 2010, when a fourth runway opens at the congested facility.

J-Air currently operates 60 flights per day on 15 routes linking Japanese cities such as Nagoya, Sapporo, Osaka and Fukuoka.