Japan Airlines to operate direct flights on Bengaluru-Tokyo route from 2020

Japan Airlines | The airline which reported an operating revenue of $13.47 billion for the first nine months of the financial year 2017-18 ranks fourth in the Travellers’ Choice Awards by TripAdvisor. In a year, the carrier serves about 41 million passengers.

Moneycontrol News 

Come 2020 and travellers will have the luxury of traveling to Tokyo directly via Bengaluru. Japan Airlines (JAL), which operates direct flights between Delhi and Tokyo, said it plans to start operations from Bengaluru by next year.

"The IT industry is thriving in Bengaluru and is known as the Silicon Valley of India... As direct flights are currently not in service from Japan, the launch of this service will provide customers from North America a new option when traveling to the southern region of India," the airline said in a statement.

The non-stop daily Tokyo -Bengaluru flight will leave Narita at 6.25 pm and reach Bengaluru at 12.05 am. The return flight would depart at 2.45 am and will reach Tokyo at 2.55 pm, the airline said.

This will be India's first flight to the east Asian country via any southern city.

"Launch of non-stop flights from Bengaluru to Tokyo (Narita) will herald a new era of more strengthened economic relation between Karnataka and Japan. With this development not only will tourism flourish in Karnataka and Japan but also many new businesses will be established; thereby creating lots of new opportunities," said Takayuki Kitagawa, consul-general, Japan said in a statement.

He said that relaxation of visa norms from January would help boost connectivity and movement of people between the two countries.

The airline envisions to attract many US citizens and boost its ties with the western country througt this route. It hopes to make Japan the "third Silicon Valley" by connecting two (US and India) Silicon Valley of the world.