All Nippon Airways

All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., also known as Zennikku or ANA, is one of the largest airlines in Japan. It is headquartered at the Shiodome City Center in the Shiodome area in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. ANA"s main international hubs are at Narita International Airport outside Tokyo and Kansai International Airport outside Osaka. Its main domestic hubs are at Tokyo International Airport (Haneda), Osaka International Airport Itami, Chubu Centrair International Airport (near Nagoya), and New Chitose Airport.

In addition to its mainline operations, ANA controls several subsidiary passenger carriers, including its regional airline, Air Nippon, charter carrier, Air Japan, and Air Next, a low-cost carrier based at Fukuoka Airport which handles flights for ANA. Additional smaller carriers include Air Nippon Network (A-net), a subsidiary of Air Nippon, Air Central, Q400-based airline based at Chubu Centrair International Airport, and ANA & JP Express (AJV), a freighter operator. ANA is also the largest shareholder in Peach, a low-cost carrier which plans to begin operations in 2012. All Nippon Airways is currently an official sponsor of Japan Football Association.

History

ANA's earliest ancestor was Nippon Helicopter and Aeroplane, an airline company founded on 27 December 1952 and began operating its first cargo flight one year later. This was the first scheduled flight flown by a Japanese pilot in postwar Japan. ANA"s other ancestor was Far East Airlines (FEA), which was founded on 26 December 1952 and began operations in January 1954. The merge between these two companies took place in March 1958, with a total market capitalization of 600 million yen, and was Japan"s largest private airline. The merged airline received a new Japanese name, called All Nippon Airways and the company logo of the larger NH was selected as the logo of the new combined airline, and the new carrier operated a route network combined from its two predecessors.

ANA grew steadily through the 1960s and debuted at the Tokyo Stock Exchange as well as the Osaka Securities Exchange in 1961. 1963 saw another merger, this one with Fujita Airlines, raising the company"s capital to 4.65 billion yen. As ANA grew, it started to contract travel companies across Japan to handle ground services in each region. Many of these companies received shares in ANA as part of their deals.

By 1974, ANA had Japan"s largest domestic airline network. ANA was allowed to operate international charter flights in 1971. In 1986, ANA began to gradually expand beyond Japan"s key domestic carrier to become a competitive international carrier as well: to Beijing, Dalian, Hong Kong and Sydney in 1987; to Seoul in 1988; to London and Saipan in 1989; to Paris in 1990 and to New York in 19