Japanese airline ANA is taking a novel approach to encouraging its passengers to get vaccinated by offering free flights and benefits to its customers. The airline will offer 200 roundtrip tickets to ANA Mileage Club members who have been fully vaccinated, while ANA Travelers will offer discounted travel packages and coupons.

Encouraging vaccination the nice way

The race to get huge populations of people fully vaccinated is going better in some countries than others. The jury is still out on whether there will be a widespread requirement to be fully vaccinated in order to fly internationally, but there are some staunch supporters of such an idea.

For Japanese airline ANA, their approach is somewhat more carrot than stick, as the airline has revealed today it plans to give away flight and other benefits to those who are vaccinated fully. Shinichi Inoue, Executive Vice President of ANA HD commented,

“As Japan begins to rebound, ANA is excited to welcome travelers back through this sweepstakes and the accompanying campaign to drive vaccination. From the beginning of the pandemic we have taken steps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and this campaign will further underscore the importance of our preventive measures as well as the vaccine for safe international travel.”

According to Our World In Data, only 59% of Japanese citizens are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with a further 10% partially vaccinated. The country has been doing well in distributing the vaccine, only lagging behind China, Italy, France and the UK in the number of doses distributed per 100 people. But with such a huge population, there is still much work to be done to get the vaccination rate up to the 80 or 90% seen in some nations.

What’s on offer?

Every branch of the ANA brand is participating in the push to encourage vaccination uptake. For the main ANA airline, the firm is offering 100 pairs of free flight tickets to those who have received both doses of the vaccine for a round domestic trip in economy class. Members of the ANA Mileage Club can apply to the sweepstake between October 1^st and November 30^th, with winners announced on December 10^th.

ANA Travelers is offering special limited packages to those booking a holiday package between now and the end of March. Some packages come with an additional coupon worth up to 30,000 yen ($268) to use in ANA Travelers Hotels.

ANA FESTA Airport Shops are offering a 5% discount on purchase worth 1,000 yen or more ($9) for those who have received the vaccine or are holding a negative PCR test no older than three days. Purchases made between October 7^th and November 30^th are eligible for this offer.

Finally, ANA’s low-cost subsidiary Peach is offering some special benefits to those who have had the vaccine, as well as those who are planning to receive the shot. Passengers can claim a 20% discount on selected inflight shopping goods, and Peach will  also offer a 10% increase in Peach Points for new purchases. Full details will be released on the Peach website in mid-October.