Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways (ANA) has announced that will return its third “Flying Honu” Airbus A380 aircraft to service in October 2023.
In 2019, ANA inducted three Airbus A380 aircraft fitted with 520 seats into its fleet to exclusively serve the popular Tokyo to Honolulu route.
The aircraft have been decorated with a special livery featuring a Hawaiian “honu” turtle, with each painted a different color evocative of the natural environment of Hawaii: blue, emerald green, and orange.
The Honu fleet was grounded in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and two of the aircraft were later reactivated in the summer of 2022.
However, the third aircraft, registration JA383A, remained in storage. But not for much longer as the orange “Flying Honu” is set to fly once again on the Tokyo Narita (NRT) to Honolulu (HNL) route (with designator NH 182/181) on October 20, 2023.
The move has been made at a time when air travel demand in the Asia-Pacific region continues to recover. This recovering demand has also prompted ANA to launch a new route between Tokyo Haneda (HND) and Qingdao, China (TAO) in Q4 2023, as well as increase capacity on its flights to several other Chinese destinations such as Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai.
In early 2024, ANA will also launch a new airline, AirJapan, to serve medium-haul leisure destinations in Asia.