airline
An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines for ...
startup headquartered on the fifth floor of the Fukuoka Gion Daiichi Seimei Building (福岡祇園第一生命ビル ''Fukuoka Gion Daiichi Seimei Biru'') in Hakata-ku,
Fukuoka
is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, which planned to serve
Fukuoka Airport
, formerly known as Itazuke Air Base, is an international and domestic airport located east of Hakata Station in Hakata-ku, Fukuoka, Japan.
Fukuoka Airport is the principal airport on the island of Kyushu and is the fourth busiest passenger ...
,
Kitakyushu Airport
, sometimes called Kokuraminami Airport, is an airport in Kokuraminami-ku, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan. It is built on an artificial island in the western Seto Inland Sea, away from the main body of the city. It opened on 16 March 2006, as but ...
Miyazaki Airport
, also known as Miyazaki Bougainvillea Airport, is an international airport located south southeastAIS Japan of
. It filed for bankruptcy liquidation in January 2014 after failing to raise adequate capital for its operations, with 900 million yen of reported debt to around eighty creditors.
Link planned to begin operations in 2014 as a
low-cost carrier
A low-cost carrier or low-cost airline (occasionally referred to as '' no-frills'', ''budget'' or '' discount carrier'' or ''airline'', and abbreviated as ''LCC'') is an airline that is operated with an especially high emphasis on minimizing op ...
that would offer beverages and other services at no additional charge. The airline had a technical and training support agreement with
StarFlyer
(), styled as StarFlyer, is a Japanese airline headquartered on the grounds of Kitakyushu Airport in Kokuraminami-ku, Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka Prefecture. It describes itself as a "hybrid airline" providing a higher level of service than low-cos ...
, and hoped to eventually have an
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
. It applied for an operating certificate in July 2013.
Link planned to take delivery of three
ATR 72-600
The ATR 72 is a twin-engine turboprop, short-haul regional airliner developed and produced in France and Italy by aircraft manufacturer ATR (french: Avions de transport régional or it, Aerei da Trasporto Regionale), a joint venture formed by ...
aircraft in 2013 and 2014, to be leased from NAC Aviation Norway A/S, and would have been the first operator of ATR aircraft in Japan. CEO Koichi Sugiyama commented that the airline chose to use turboprop aircraft due to the short route lengths to be operated, where turboprop flight times would only be about five minutes longer than
regional jet
A regional jet (RJ) is a jet-powered regional airliner with fewer than 100 seats. The first one was the Sud-Aviation Caravelle in 1959, followed by the widespread Yakovlev Yak-40, Fokker F-28, and BAe 146. The 1990s saw the emergence of th ...