Update: The launch of the flight has been delayed to July 3, 2021.

Air travel has dropped tremendously over the past two months domestically in India. Many nations have also barred travel from India on the back of the pandemic taking its toll in India.

However, that hasn’t stopped Vistara from launching flights under the air bubbles that India has negotiated with various countries. Vistara has already launched flights to London Heathrow and Frankfurt. Since Vistara launched its first international flight to Singapore, it was known that the airline had an eye on launching flights to Tokyo.

Vistara to launch flight to Tokyo Haneda on June 16, 2021

Vistara has announced its plan to launch flights on the Delhi – Tokyo Haneda route from June 16, 2021. The airline will fly once a week between the two cities, for now, using the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft that was inducted by the airline into its fleet in 2020. This will be the first time an Indian airline will be offering premium economy on this route, apart from the Business and Economy cabins.

Vistara has also trained its cabin crew in the Japanese language for this flight. However, the big score is that Vistara is going to be flying to Tokyo Haneda, which is twenty minutes out from the Tokyo city centre, as compared to Narita, which is over an hour’s ride. Japan Airlines had moved its Delhi – Tokyo flight to Haneda, which should allow the codeshare partners to share traffic. Being the first mover at HND should mean they may also get priority in getting the Haneda slot allocated to them entirely when the time comes. India was given one daytime slot at HND when Haneda distributed slots in 2019.

On this occasion, Leslie Thng, the Chief Executive Officer of Vistara said,

Far East has been an extremely important geography for our global expansion from the beginning for its tremendous growth potential. We are delighted to add Japan to our international network, under the travel bubble and  look forward to providing the best of Indian hospitality while maintaining the highest standards of safety and hygiene for our customers on this sector.

Bookings for the flights are open on all channels, including Vistara’s website, mobile app, and travel agents. Introductory, all-inclusive, round-trip fares between Delhi and Tokyo are pegged at INR 45K in Economy, INR 74K in Premium Economy and INR 150K in Business Class.

The flight schedule is as follows:

The flight is blocked at 8:20 hours on the outward and 9:15 hours on the return segment.

As you can see, Vistara will keep the plane on the ground for a whole day in Tokyo. This could be perhaps because while they are allowed a daytime arrival, they are only allowed a night-time departure. Vistara could have also done this to optimise crew requirements. With this setup, they will be able to operate with one single set of crew, which will arrive in Tokyo and after rest hours will be used to operate the return flight as well. Remember, with the unique requirement to communicate in Japanese, there will only be a limited subset of the crew to start who will operate these flights.

Redemption rates on these flight look pretty nominal and look like a one point:1 INR redemption. Here is one-way redemption for this route using Club Vistara:

• Economy Class: 22000 CV points
• Premium Economy Class: 40000 CV points
• Business Class: 75000 CV points

Overall, Vistara might get some tailwinds from the Olympics if they will be held in Tokyo in July 2021. The Indian contingent will need to travel ahead, and this might assure them a few full flights to Tokyo.

Bottomline

Vistara is slated to launch flights between New Delhi and Tokyo in June 2021. At first, this will be a once a week flight operated by the Boeing 787-9 will operate to/from Tokyo Haneda once a week.

What do you think of Vistara’s launch of a sole flight to Tokyo?

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