Toki Air

Is Toki Air safe?

Yes, on the record so far. Toki Air, the airline of Niigata, has flown scheduled flights since 31 January 2024 without an accident or a serious incident, flies three young ATR turboprops and is overseen by Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau. The catch is that the record is short: under three years and about 2,500 flights a year. We score it 83, level with Amakusa Airlines, which has 26 clean years but older equipment and a missed maintenance check, and just below IBEX (84), the ANA-linked regional jet airline that also serves Niigata.

Toki Air sells its own tickets as BV flights and flies under its own ICAO code, TOK, assigned in June 2023: on 28 October 2026 its ATR 72 JA02QQ flew from Sapporo to Niigata as "TOK104". It is independent of the big Japanese groups, so its record is its own.

What the first two years show

Toki Air publishes detailed safety reports, and the first one is frank. In fiscal 2024, its first full year, it reported 17 "safety troubles" to the regulator, ten of them from human error. A first officer flew from the right seat before he had the flying hours the rules require for it. Cabin crew twice mishandled a door safety pin, once leaving it in the ground position for take-off. On one day in October 2024 engineers replaced seven cockpit warning lights without writing them in the logbook, because they wrongly believed no entry was needed. None of this caused harm, and each item led to a rule or training change. The company wrote that its safety management system "was not working well enough" at the start.

Fiscal 2025 looked better: one human-error report in about 2,500 flights, a maintenance task done after its due date on 19 October 2025, and four flights that turned back to Niigata after warnings on the climb (a radio, de-icing and two engine torque readings). The regulator took no action in either year.

Winter is the hard part

Niigata sits on the Sea of Japan coast, where winter brings heavy snow and lightning storms. In December 2024 and January 2025 both ATR 72s were damaged, mainly by lightning strikes, and Toki Air cancelled every flight on 11 days before it got them back on 15 and 21 January. Its northern destination, Sapporo's Okadama, is a small city airport in one of Japan's snowiest cities.

There was one more gap for a new airline. Only on 31 October 2025 did the Civil Aviation Bureau approve Toki Air to fly ILS Category I approaches, the standard precision approach in bad weather. Before that its crews needed better weather to land, which meant more diversions and cancellations, not more risk. The airline also flies charters to Sado Island, whose runway is short and narrow: on its first Kobe to Sado charter in May 2026, weight limits held the ATR 42 to 20 passengers.

The fleet

Three turboprops from ATR's current -600 series. The two 72-seat ATR 72-600s joined in November 2022 and January 2023 at two to three years old; the 46-seat ATR 42-600 was delivered in December 2024. At 31 March 2026 they averaged 4.5 years. They have modern glass cockpits and Pratt & Whitney Canada engines, and the type has a long record on regional routes worldwide.

The money question

Toki Air is losing money. It lost ¥2.4 billion in the year to March 2026 and has had more liabilities than assets for two years running, according to Nikkei, and Niigata Prefecture has twice agreed to defer repayments on its loans. Losses alone do not make an airline unsafe, and the regulator has found nothing against it. But a small airline under financial strain is one to watch, and we will look at its next safety report closely.

How to fly Toki Air

• Avoid tight connections in winter. From December to March, book the morning flight and leave a spare half-day if you connect at Chubu or Sapporo.
• Do not book months ahead without checking the news. With the finances this tight, look for any word on schedule cuts before you pay for a trip far in advance.

How we scored it

Oversight (86) reflects Japan's strong regulator without 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. The accident record (86) is clean but under three years long. The young ATR fleet scores 80. Serious incidents (78) carry the run of human-error reports in the first year, which fell sharply in the second. Snow and winter lightning at Niigata and Okadama put the environment at 78. Overall 83.