Toki Air

Toki Air, officially TOKI AIR Co., ltd. (トキエア株式会社), is a Japanese low-cost, regional airline based at Niigata Airport in the city of Niigata, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. The airline was founded on July 29, 2020 and commenced operations on January 31, 2024.

History
Toki Air was established in July 29, 2020 in order to reconnect regional and remote areas across the country. The company signed a leasing agreement with Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC) for two ATR 72-600s. Additionally, the company also signed a ten-year Global Maintenance Agreement (GMA) with ATR for its two ordered 72-600s. Toki Air also plans to introduce the ATR 42-600S variant which is currently under development by ATR. Toki Air, is expected to have its first ATR 42-600S in early 2025. The purchase of the aircraft will make the company the first Japanese airline to operate this type of aircraft.

Toki Air took delivery of its first ATR 72 on October 10, 2022. The aircraft arrived at its hub at Niigata Airport on November 5, 2022.

The government of Niigata Prefecture extended 1.16 billion yen in financing to Toki on October 31, 2022.

Toki formally applied for an air operator's certificate on November 30, 2022, which was approved by the East Japan Civil Aviation Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on March 31, 2023. Toki would be the first new locally-owned Japanese domestic airline in 14 years (after Fuji Dream Airlines).

On August 28, 2023, a 66-year-old former employee of Oriental Air Bridge, who was the manager of the safety department, was prosecuted after it was discovered that the employee had illegally downloaded and transferred secret documents from the airline on November 25, 2022. The employee retired from the airline in December 2022 and later joined Toki Air. The employee admitted to the charges and stated that "I took these (the documents), because I thought it would be useful my next company's work." Toki Air stated that they had demoted the employee and reported the incident to the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau. Oriental Air Bridge in an interview stated that there was no impact of flight safety and the airline would work to prevent such incident from happening again.

Destinations
As of April 2024, Toki Air currently flies between Niigata and both Sendai and Sapporo Okadama.

Fleet
The Toki Air fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of December 2023):

Toki Air is also one of several airlines advising Heart Aerospace on its proposed ES-30 electric airliner.