Peach Aviation

Is Peach safe?

Yes. Peach Aviation, the low-cost airline of the ANA group, has carried passengers since 2012 without a fatal accident, a written-off aircraft or even an injury accident in the records of Japan's investigators. It flies 40 Airbus A320-family jets under one of the strictest regulators anywhere. We score it 87, just below its parent All Nippon Airways (89) and level with Jetstar.

The points it loses come from four serious incidents the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) has investigated, two of which began in Peach's own cockpit, and a 2025 case of a captain drinking before duty.

What were Peach's serious incidents?

The JTSB has published reports on four events, all without injuries:

• Naha, April 2014. An A320 from Ishigaki was being radar-guided to Naha when it started descending early and kept going down. The ground proximity warning sounded, and the lowest radio height recorded was 241 feet over the sea, about four miles from the runway. The captain pulled up and landed on the next approach. The JTSB found the descent was probably started by an unintentional input by the captain, and that both pilots relied on the autopilot and stopped watching the altitude. The radar controllers' risk management also contributed.
• Haneda, December 2016. Cleared to land on runway 16L at night, an A320 from Taipei lined up on runway 23, which was closed for maintenance. The tower noticed and sent it around about 5 nm east of the airport. The JTSB blamed insufficient preparation for the VOR approach and weak workload management and monitoring.
• Fukuoka, March 2018. During the landing roll the pin joining the nose-gear torque links came out, the nose wheels turned about 90 degrees and both tyres were damaged; nobody was hurt. The JTSB found the pin's thread had corroded, probably because the torque links had been assembled wrongly and the pin refitted many times, and said poor greasing at the last heavy check may have sped up the corrosion.
• Haneda, November 2019. A Peach A320 landed while a work vehicle was crossing the runway without clearance. The JTSB put this on the airport workers, not the crew.

The two approach errors weigh most. Both are the kind of error that, in worse weather or terrain, can end in an accident. Peach changed its training after each, and nothing similar has been reported since 2016.

In September 2024 an A320neo landing at New Chitose turned towards a high-speed exit that was closed for works and got stuck off the paved surface, closing the runway for about two hours. Nobody was hurt, and it was not classed as a serious incident.

What happened with the Peach pilot who drank?

On 6 January 2025 a Peach captain drank two 500 ml cans of beer in Singapore within the 12 hours before flying the A321LR back to Kansai as MM774 early on 7 January. He skipped the pre-flight alcohol test and, when the airline investigated, first lied about when he had been drinking. He was not found to be drunk. On 14 February the Civil Aviation Bureau gave Peach a strict warning, calling the breach intentional and the false statement malicious, and on 14 March it suspended the captain for 30 days.

Japan treats this harshly: Japan Airlines received a business improvement recommendation after two of its pilots drank too much before a Melbourne flight in December 2024. One case at Peach does not show a pattern, but it is a recent failure of the rules meant to catch it.

Who oversees Peach?

Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau, part of the transport ministry (MLIT). Japan holds FAA Category 1FAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary and has never had an airline on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary, and the JTSB publishes detailed reports in Japanese and English. That is why Japanese airlines score well on oversight. Peach is not an IATA member, so the usual route to confirming an IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit is closed; we found no statement that it holds one, and score oversight a few points below ANA for that reason.

What does Peach fly?

Only Airbus narrowbodies. At 30 June 2026 the fleet was 24 A320neos with 188 seats, three long-range A321LRs with 218 seats, used on routes such as Singapore, and 13 older A320ceos with 180 seats. Some of the ceos date from Peach's start in 2012; ANA does not publish an average age. Two A320neos joined in the April–June quarter, and ANA plans to grow Peach by about 30% by fiscal 2030.

How to fly Peach safely

Peach's network centres on Kansai and Narita, with domestic trunk routes, its key routes to Seoul and Taipei, and longer A321LR flights such as Singapore. In typhoon season, roughly June to October, Okinawa and Kansai flights are cancelled at short notice; rebook rather than chase a marginal departure. Peach's A320s seat up to 188 people in one class, so count the rows to the nearest exit, and remember that a cheap fare and a cramped seat say nothing about how the aircraft is maintained.

How we scored it

The accident record (94) is clean of deaths and lost aircraft across 14 years. Oversight (86) reflects Japan's strong regulator without a confirmed IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit, and the fleet (86) is all Airbus fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary with a third still older ceos. Serious incidents (74) cover the 2016 and 2018 JTSB cases and the 2025 drinking warning, and environment scores 85. Overall 87.