Japan’s regional aviation problem is not a shortage of airports. It is a shortage of aircraft that can fill them sensibly.
ANA’s order for eight more Embraer E190-E2s is a bet that the 100-seat jet can rebuild services that are too thin for a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 but too important to abandon to road and rail. Korean Air’s decision to restore Seoul to Oita flights for the winter adds another piece of evidence. Secondary airports are not disappearing. They are looking for aircraft and schedules that fit the traffic they actually have.
ANA now has firm orders for 23 E190-E2s, on top of five options. The first aircraft are due in 2028 and will be operated through an expanded ACMI arrangement, meaning an outside operator supplies the aircraft, crews, maintenance and insurance for ANA services. The structure gives ANA a way to add regional capacity without expanding every part of its own operating machine.
The E190-E2 is a calculated break from the old Japanese regional model. For years, smaller cities have been served by turboprops and regional jets or by larger aircraft whose economics depended on high fares and limited competition. The new Embraer carries about 100 passengers. It is large enough to offer a proper business schedule and a respectable cargo hold. It is small enough to fly routes where a 180-seat narrowbody would need unrealistically high load factors.
Its appeal is not simply size. ANA says the aircraft offers lower fuel use, less noise and more flexible matching of supply to demand. That matters in a country where many regional airports face ageing populations, slow local economic growth and traffic that can surge during holidays before falling away in the middle of the week.
Japan’s challenge is that its regional map was built for a different demographic era. Local airports were expanded when smaller cities expected population growth, more domestic business travel and stronger links to Tokyo and Osaka. Many now serve communities that are older, smaller and less likely to travel frequently for work. A daily 180-seat jet may be too large. No service at all can leave a region isolated from medical care, government, education and tourism markets.
The small jet offers a middle path. It can provide frequency without wasting too many seats. That is important because frequency is the real product on domestic routes. A flight that leaves once a day at an inconvenient time is of limited use to a business traveller or a patient needing treatment in a larger city. Two well timed flights can make the same route part of the local economy.
But the aircraft will not create demand by itself. It needs routes with more than a holiday spike. Tourism can help. Oita has hot springs, coastal resorts and access to Kyushu’s wider tourism economy. Korean Air will restore flights from Seoul Incheon four times a week from October 25 to March 26, using an Airbus A321neo. That is a seasonal decision, not a declaration that every smaller Japanese airport can support year-round international flying.
The route works because Oita has a clear international proposition. South Korean tourists can reach a destination with established leisure demand, while Kyushu residents gain access to Korean Air’s network at Incheon. The morning arrival and midday return are designed to make the service useful at both ends. Yet it is telling that Korean Air is starting with the winter season and four weekly flights, rather than a daily year-round commitment. The airline is testing demand before it commits more aircraft.
ANA is making a longer wager. Domestic regional routes do not need to carry foreign tourists to work. They need a blend of passengers. There are business travellers moving between provincial industries and larger cities. There are students, families and elderly travellers. There are medical journeys to specialist hospitals. There are government workers and contractors. There are visitors to ski resorts, hot springs, historic sites and islands. The trick is to find markets where these groups overlap enough to fill a 100-seat aircraft through the year.
The next problem is people. Pilots are not interchangeable between aircraft types, and regional aviation is competing for a finite pool of experienced crews. Japan’s airlines must recruit and train pilots while a large share of the workforce approaches retirement. An E190-E2 needs pilots with a type rating, recurrent training and career prospects that stop them moving to a bigger aircraft or overseas airline at the first opportunity.
Ground infrastructure matters too. A new regional jet needs more than a runway long enough to land. It needs trained ground staff, suitable boarding equipment, baggage systems, fuel supply, firefighting cover, de-icing capability where needed, and maintenance support. Smaller airports often have these in basic form. They may not have the spare staff or equipment to support higher frequency operations without extra investment.
Japan’s rail network makes this a demanding comparison. A regional flight cannot compete merely by being airborne. It has to beat a train journey from city centre to city centre, including the time required to reach an airport, clear security and wait at the gate. That limits the routes where domestic aviation makes sense. It favours long, mountainous, island and peripheral sectors where rail is slow, indirect or unavailable.
The E190-E2 will therefore work best not as a replacement for every old regional aircraft, but as a tool for routes where Japan needs frequency more than scale. It can link regional cities to hubs, serve islands and distant prefectures, and restore markets that once had too little traffic for a narrowbody but too much strategic value to lose.