ANA Holdings Inc, the parent company of Japan-based airline ANA, launches a new program to help travelers recharge while in-flight. The program, ANA Travel Wellness, aims to create a more comfortable atmosphere for travelers.
“ANA HD realizes that many travelers fear long flights due to potential side effects such as jetlag, fatigue or lack of sleep,” says Yoshiaki Tsuda, vice president, ANA digital design lab, in a release. “These negative notions deter some passengers from taking longer flights. To address these issues, ANA HD has been working to create the ANA Travel Wellness initiative. This idea was first expressed more than 10 years ago by Yoji Ohashi, senior advisor to the board of ANA HD and former chairman and CEO of ANA.”
ANA HD has been working with a research team led by Ichiro Kawachi, MBChB, PhD, chair of the department of social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to review evidence and investigate perceptions and determinants of jet lag among US and Japanese passengers traveling in business class. ANA HD has also conducted various surveys about jet lag to gather additional information and plans to publish the results in academic journals.
ANA HD will begin initiatives to help passengers be at their best physical and mental states during flights and potentially be in even better shape than they were before boarding the flight. The initiatives will first focus on athletes since they are often required to be in their best condition upon arrival.
The first initiative will create a mobile app to relieve the feeling of jet lag, which will be made in conjunction with startup NeuroSpace. ANA HD and NeuroSpace are looking into the scientific cause of jet lag to help alleviate the symptoms or prevent them from occurring altogether. Test trials of the app will be conducted on certain ANA HD employees and passengers traveling internationally. ANA HD aims to officially start offering this service in April 2019.
Through multiple initiatives, including the jet lag-relieving app, ANA HD’s goal is to increase the affinity for air travel and challenge ourselves daily in an endeavor to capture latent customer needs.
