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The story
The company was formed on 10 February 2011 as A&F Aviation, a joint venture between All Nippon Airways (ANA) and the First Eastern Investment Group, a Hong Kong-based private equity and venture capital firm. The company applied for an operating certificate in April 2011 and changed its name to Peach Aviation in May 2011. Its shares were held in almost equal portions by ANA, FEIG, and the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), ANA holding a slightly larger share of the three. ANA controls 77.9% of Peach's stock as of 2018.
Peach's brand development was conducted by CIA, Inc. and The Brand Architect Group, who engaged Neil Denari for aircraft livery design and James Wilkie for uniform design. The airline is based at Kansai International Airport. In July 2011, Peach received 1,909 applications for its first class of ninety flight attendants.
At one time, its headquarters were located on the third floor of Aeroplaza (エアロプラザ, Earopuraza), located on the property of Kansai International Airport in Tajiri, Sennan District, Osaka Prefecture. On 1 August 2011, Peach announced that it was moving its operations office from Aeroplaza to Kensetsu-to. At some point, the headquarters returned to Aeroplaza.
Peach's first aircraft, an Airbus A320, was delivered to its home base at Kansai International Airport in November 2011. Within its fleet, Peach has two named aircraft. Its first A320 was named Peach Dream; its tenth A320 was named Wing of Tohoku following a contest in which sixty elementary school students from the Tohoku region submitted proposals. The airline's first flight was on 1 March 2012, between Osaka Kansai and New Chitose Airport, which serves the Sapporo metropolitan area.
Peach was the most successful of the three new Japanese low-cost carriers during their first year of operations, with average load factors around 80 percent versus 70 percent for Jetstar Japan and 50 to 60 percent for AirAsia Japan. Peach's 24-hour operations and exclusive terminal at Kansai Airport were credited for its relative success, as well as its stronger focus on certain passenger experience factors such as its reservations and check-in systems.
However, during the summer 2014 season Peach cancelled over 2,000 planned flights (about 16% of its total capacity) due to a shortage of pilots. The airline planned to have 62 pilots by October 2014 but only had 52 as of April, eight of whom were unable to fly due to sickness or injury. Loss of pilots to other airlines was a contributing cause for the shortage. It was later reported that Peach would consider allowing its pilots to commute from Tokyo Haneda to Osaka Kansai on other airlines, a practice rarely allowed in Japan, in order to attract candidates who were unwilling to relocate to Osaka.
In May 2017, Peach became the first airline in Japan to accept bitcoin as payment.
On 22 March 2018, All Nippon Airways announced the integration of its two low-cost carrier subsidiaries, Peach and Vanilla Air, with Peach as the surviving brand. Integration began during the second half of the 2018 fiscal year and was completed by the end of 2019. The combined airline also planned to operate over 50 aircraft and routes beyond FY2020, up from 35 aircraft and 39 routes at the time of the announcement, as well as targeted a ¥150 (0.95) billion revenue and a 10% operating profit for FY2020. Vanilla Air ceased operations on 26 October 2019, with its operations integrated with Peach's.
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On 23 December 2024, it was reported that ANA has acquired the remaining 7% stake from First Eastern Aviation Holdings and therefore assume full ownership of Peach.
From Wikipedia’s article on Peach Aviation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4