was a regional

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines ...

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 List of Japanese cities by population, sixth-largest city in Japan 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 ancient times. ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, which planned to serve Fukuoka Airport, Kitakyushu Airport, Matsuyama Airport and Miyazaki Airport. 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 (LCC) or low-cost airline, also called a budget, or discount carrier or airline, is an airline that is operated with an emphasis on minimizing operating costs. It sacrifices certain traditional airline luxuries for cheaper fa ...

that would offer beverages and other services at no additional charge. The airline had a technical and training support agreement with

StarFlyer Starflyer or Star Flyer may refer to: * StarFlyer, a Japanese airline * '' Star Flyer'', a sailing ship operated by Star Clippers of Sweden * Starflyer 59, an indie rock/shoegaze band from Riverside, California * The Starflyer, an alien antagonist ...

, 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 investm ...

. It applied for an operating certificate in July 2013. Link planned to take delivery of three ATR 72-600 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 airliner, jet-powered regional airliner usually defined by having fewer than 100 seats. The first aircraft considered part of this category was the Sud-Aviation Caravelle in 1959, followed by Douglas DC-9, BAC O ...

flight times.

References

External links

Link Airs
{{Airlines of Japan Defunct airlines of Japan Airlines established in 2012 Airlines disestablished in 2014 Defunct low-cost airlines Companies based in Fukuoka Prefecture