SAKATA, Yamagata Prefecture--Sayaka Kirie used to have a less than 20-minute commute to work--four minutes on foot and 10 minutes by train.

But now, by choice, Kirie, 30, a flight attendant with All Nippon Airways Co. (ANA), has a 90-minute commute, involving a 30-minute bus ride and a 60-minute flight. 

In December, Kirie moved from Tokyo’s Ota Ward to Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture, in the northeastern Tohoku region.

She uses her employer’s air service to “commute” from Shonai Airport here to her workplace at Haneda Airport in the Japanese capital.

Her life in the Shonai area of northwestern Yamagata Prefecture, where she had never lived previously, started with day after day of snowstorms, which, however, she said she enjoyed.

“I take delight in the snow, because I hail from the Goto islands of Nagasaki Prefecture (where there is little snow),” Kirie said. “One day, I was caught up in the drifting snow while I was walking to a convenience store at night, and I said to myself, ‘Oh, this is it.’ It felt as if I were diving in the water.”

Kirie has been serving, along with four of her fellow flight attendants, as “ANA Shonai Blue Ambassadors” (ASBAs) since October last year.

The ASBA project has ANA flight attendants reside in the Shonai area while remaining in active service based at Haneda, for half of their workdays each month.

They spend the remaining half of the month posting information online on the Shonai area, cooperating with the development and advertisement of local products, and otherwise engaging in regional promotion efforts.

Since late October, the quintet has appeared in their flight attendant uniforms at events held in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, and elsewhere, including a fair promoting local products, a workshop on personal grooming and a Christmas-related festivity.

FLIGHT ATTENDANTS TAKE 'SIDE JOBS'

The coronavirus pandemic has dealt a major blow to air travel demand. Flight attendants have suffered sharp drops in their incomes from fewer opportunities to serve aboard flights.

By way of relief, ANA has presented new work style options for them, including temporary transfers on loan to other companies, lifting bans on holding side jobs, and offering a new housing system that motivates them to move to live in other prefectures and commute by air.

Some 1,200 ANA workers have so far been reassigned on loan to other entities, including local governments, mass home electric appliance retailer Nojima Corp. and supermarket chain operator Seijo Ishii Co.

The ASBA framework, however, differs from those other programs because the duty of goodwill ambassadors for commemorating the 30th anniversary of Shonai Airport’s opening is defined as a “side job.”

“The ASBAs are supposed to remain ANA flight attendants who are only drawing on their expertise,” said Makoto Maeda, head of ANA’s Shonai office. “That’s certainly about something other than flight duties, but the ASBAs are not supposed to be taking a temporary leave to be on loan to a different business sector. That setup makes quite a difference in the level of their motivation.”

Many are watching with great interest to see the outcome of the innovative measure, which provides a unique combination of personal relocation, regional development work and a side job.

LIFE CHANGED DURING PANDEMIC 

Kirie joined the airline in 2014.

She is qualified to serve as chief purser on domestic flights and as business class purser on international flights. She was literally flying around the world until the pandemic struck.

“And suddenly I had to be at home day after day, and my income took a sharp dive,” Kirie said. “I grew so anxious about the future that I switched to a whole life insurance policy.”

A call for applicants for the ASBA program came around the time she was deciding if she would have to rethink her lifestyle.

The positions on offer had a limited term ending in March 2023. Taking one would certainly allow her to earn more, but would also reduce her opportunities to be aboard flights by one-half, and would limit them to domestic flights alone during her term.

And fewer opportunities to work flights could hurt her career plans for the years to come.

The jobs being offered were therefore not going to help her career, but Kirie decided to apply for one.

“I had always wanted to do something that would sow seeds for the future,” she said. “The opportunity to live in the countryside also appeared attractive. And, before everything else, it all looked fun.”

Previously, Kirie’s job basically comprised only standing by on board a plane until needed. But she now has opportunities to take the initiative in approaching a large number of strangers, away from her workplace on airplanes, in an unfamiliar terrain.

Kirie said she believes the experience will empower her for the future and will pay off in the long run.

The ASBA program was born on the sidelines of ANA’s group-wide business structure reform, which was put into practice last April in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

ANA Sales Co., a group company that was in charge of airline ticket sales and a travel business, was split up and replaced by ANA Akindo Co., a new corporate entity that combines airline ticket sales with a regional development business. "Akindo" is Japanese for merchant.

The measure is intended to stimulate the mobility of humans and goods, and to create air travel demand by extension, by not just selling airline tickets but also engaging actively in regional communities.

The latest appointment of the flight attendants in active service to the ASBA positions is also intended to achieve a more broad-based penetration of the ANA brand.