AirAsia Japan (Nagoya Chubu) will be rebranded to Vanilla Air (Tokyo Narita), the airline's president Tomonori Ishii has announced. The name was chosen - despite its connotations of "boring" or "bland" in the West - following the recent divorce between the airline's parent companies, AirAsia (AK, Kuala Lumpur International) and ANA - All Nippon Airways (NH, Tokyo Haneda), the latter of which now wholly owns the carrier. All of AirAsia Japan's 420 staff will now also become employees of the LCC. Vanilla Air, which will be based out of Tokyo Narita and is set to begin flights in late December with two A320s leased from ANA, will target travellers heading for resort destinations. Ishii said Vanilla Air will increase its fleet to 10 in 2015. Commenting on the demise of AirAsia Japan, Mr Ishii said the slump was partially due to the company's extra focus on online sales - a key strategy for AirAsia - but which ultimately failed owing to Japanese travellers still preferring to book flights through travel agents.