All Nippon Airways Announces Pikachu Jet NH

With the warmer summer months approaching and the cherry blossoms ablaze with color, it’s obviously the time when Pokémon characters come out to play. In this case, it is the Sky High Pokémon Rayquaza who will be off touring around Asia on the side of a 787 Dreamliner.

Yesterday Japanese airline All Nippon Airlines (ANA) announced it had teamed up with the Pokémon Company to launch the next aircraft in the Pokémon Air Adventures series. The airliner will be known as ‘Pikachu Jet NH,’ with NH being the International Air Transport Association airline code for ANA.

Photo: Skymark Airlines

The Sky High Pokémon Rayquaza will be depicted on the aircraft’s fuselage, with ANA launching the first service on June 4th. The aircraft chosen to be transformed is a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner delivered to ANA in September 2017. It is registered JA894A with manufacturer serial number 34517 and today is operating a flight from Tokyo Haneda Airport (HND) to Sydney Airport (SYD) in Australia.

The 787 seats 246 passengers in a three-clas layout, with 40 in business, 14 in premium economy and 192 in economy. How many it will seat after it becomes a Pokémon fun palace remains to be seen. The Dreamliner is one of 79 in ANA’s fleet, and this one can be seen plying its trade around Asia to ports like Ho Chi Minh City, Shanghai, Delhi, Manila, Singapore and Bangkok. It is also used on long-haul flights like today’s one to Australia and Honolulu.

Photo: China Airlines

With Asia fully back in travel mode, the Pokémon Air Adventures are “for people to experience the joy of travel and the pleasure of mobility once again.” Pickachu Jet NH will carry the livery for five years from June 4th, 2023, operating on domestic and international routes. To build up expectations, ANA has released a set of routes that the Pikachu jet may operate on from June 4th until October 28th, 2023, although it said that the routes are subject to change due to changes in operations.

Where can we fly on it?

The potential first routes are all from Haneda and carry the following flight numbers:

• Bangkok – NH847/NH850/NH849/NH848
• Singapore – NH841/NH844/NH843/NH842
• Jakarta – NH855/NH856
• Manila – NH869/NH870
• Ho Chi Minh City – NH891/NH892
• Delhi – NH837/NH838
• Sydney – NH879/NH880/NH889/NH890
• Vancouver – NH116/NH115
• Honolulu – NH186/NH185.

Photo: Scoot

The merchandise is back

As to be expected, the Pokémon Air Adventures flights will not lack themed merchandise or unique entertainment, although ANA and Pokémon are not letting their secrets out just yet. They said yesterday that Pokémon-related content, such as Pokémon Kids TV and POKÉTOON would be on all ANA international flights and domestic flights, starting from June and July, respectively.

On the merchandise, all they said was that the first original goods would be the “Bath Poncho,” which would go on sale in time for the first flight on June 4th. It will be available on ANA international and domestic flights through the inflight duty-free sales service and the ANA STORE@SKY online shopping platform.

This is the fifth aircraft in this series of Pokémon Air Adventures. The previous aircraft were Pikachu Jet BC from Skymark Airlines, Jet CI from China Airlines, Jet TR from Scoot and Jet TW from T’way Air.

Are you excited about the next Pikachu Jet? Let us know in the comments.