How to Apply to ANA Holdings

11 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 1 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • ANA Holdings hires through sonar ATS at ana-recruit.snar.jp and company-specific subdomains, with separate tracks for new graduates and mid-career candidates.
  • For FY2026 entry, ANA alone plans around 815 new graduate hires, including roughly 600 cabin crew, 140 Global Staff, and 65 pilot trainees, with additional openings across 37 group companies.
  • Interviews run three to four rounds, are conducted primarily in Japanese for domestic roles, and probe service mindset, safety thinking, and long-term fit as heavily as technical skill.
  • English-only candidates can realistically target Global Staff, headquarters strategy, and select IT and DX openings, but cabin crew, airport operations, and most domestic positions expect business-level Japanese.
  • ANA's 77-aircraft order and DX investment are driving hiring in flight operations, engineering, and data roles through at least 2030.

About ANA Holdings

ANA Holdings Inc. is the Tokyo-headquartered parent company of Japan's largest airline group. The business traces its roots to Nippon Helicopter and Aeroplane, founded on December 27, 1952, which merged in 1958 under the All Nippon Airways name. ANA Holdings itself was created in 2013 as a pure holding company to oversee the expanding group structure. Corporate headquarters sit in Shiodome City Center at 1-5-2 Higashi-Shimbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, where the holding company occupies multiple floors of the tower it has anchored since 2003. The group operates three airline brands. All Nippon Airways (ANA) is the flagship full-service carrier, a founding member of Star Alliance and the sole Japanese airline to hold Skytrax's 5-Star rating, which it has now earned for 13 consecutive years since 2013. Peach Aviation is the group's low-cost carrier, became a wholly owned subsidiary in December 2024, and operates an Airbus A320-family fleet across Japan and Asia. AirJapan launched in February 2024 to serve medium-haul international routes, though ANA has announced plans to wind down the AirJapan brand in 2026 and fold operations back into the wider group. Beyond the three airlines, ANA Holdings controls roughly 70 consolidated subsidiaries covering ground handling, cargo (ANA Cargo, Nippon Cargo Airlines), catering, IT (ANA Systems), travel retail, and the ANA X digital platform business. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, ANA Holdings reported operating revenue of approximately 2.26 trillion yen, up about 10% year over year, with the group employing about 46,000 people across Japan and international stations. The company has guided to roughly 2.37 trillion yen in revenue for the fiscal year ending March 2026, which would mark a record high. Two strategic developments shape hiring in 2026. First, in February 2025 ANA Holdings approved its largest-ever order: 77 new aircraft from Boeing, Airbus, and Embraer in a deal valued near 14.5 billion US dollars, with a target fleet of around 320 aircraft by 2030. Second, the group is investing heavily in digital transformation. In-house DX training is credited with roughly 1.45 billion yen in cost savings in FY2024, and IT and digital roles are now a stated priority for new-graduate and mid-career hiring at ANA, ANA X, and ANA Systems. What distinguishes ANA from other carriers is less about scale and more about service philosophy. Omotenashi, the Japanese concept of anticipatory hospitality, is the organizing principle behind training, uniforms, airport experience, and crew recruitment. That philosophy drives consistent recognition from Skytrax for airport services and cabin staff, and it sets the bar candidates are measured against at interview. Prospective applicants should expect a company that is commercially ambitious, unmistakably Japanese in culture, and uncompromising about service standards.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Step 1: Identify the correct entry point

    Step 1: Identify the correct entry point. ANA Holdings splits hiring into 新卒採用 (new graduate) and 中途採用 (mid-career) tracks, and each of the roughly 37 ANA Group companies runs its own page. Start at ana.co.jp/group/recruit, then navigate to the group company list to confirm whether you are applying to ANA mainline, Peach, ANA Cargo, ANA Systems, or an airport subsidiary.

  2. 2
    Step 2: Register on sonar ATS

    Step 2: Register on sonar ATS. Most ANA Group openings funnel into ana-recruit.snar.jp or a company-specific snar.jp subdomain. You create a candidate account, set a password, and verify by email. All subsequent documents, test invitations, and interview bookings are handled inside the sonar portal, so treat the login as your primary application workspace.

  3. 3
    Step 3: Complete the entry sheet (エントリーシート)

    Step 3: Complete the entry sheet (エントリーシート). Japanese employers rely on structured entry sheets rather than a single resume. Expect prompts about motivation (志望動機), self-analysis (自己PR), and a specific ANA-related question. Answers are typically written in Japanese for domestic tracks, with strict character counts. Global Staff applicants may see bilingual prompts.

  4. 4
    Step 4: Submit supporting documents

    Step 4: Submit supporting documents. For new graduates you will usually upload a 履歴書 (rirekisho) and academic transcript. Mid-career candidates submit a 職務経歴書 (work history) alongside the resume. ANA accepts PDF uploads through sonar ATS. Pilot, cabin attendant, and technical roles may require additional certifications, medical clearances, or language test scores at this stage.

  5. 5
    Step 5: Complete aptitude and language testing

    Step 5: Complete aptitude and language testing. Most tracks include an online aptitude test (commonly SPI or a similar web test) and, for cabin crew or global roles, a TOEIC-style English assessment. Cabin attendant postings target TOEIC scores around 700 or above. Testing windows are scheduled through sonar ATS with automated reminders.

  6. 6
    Step 6: Advance through interview rounds

    Step 6: Advance through interview rounds. The standard flow is a group interview, one or more individual panel interviews, and a final interview with senior leadership. Cabin crew candidates also undergo a grooming and appearance check plus a swimming test for safety qualification. Interviews for domestic tracks are conducted in Japanese; Global Staff and some headquarters roles include English-language components.

  7. 7
    Step 7: Receive the naitei (内定) and complete onboarding

    Step 7: Receive the naitei (内定) and complete onboarding. A conditional job offer is issued through sonar ATS, followed by document verification, medical checks, and signing. New graduates typically enter in April of the following fiscal year. Mid-career hires negotiate start dates directly with the hiring company.

Resume Tips for ANA Holdings

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Tip 1: Match the document to the track

Tip 1: Match the document to the track. For new graduate applications, lead with a Japanese 履歴書 using the standard JIS format and attach a 職務経歴書 only if you have internship or part-time work worth detailing. For mid-career roles, a two-page 職務経歴書 in Japanese is the expected primary document. Global Staff candidates can submit an English resume but should be prepared to provide a Japanese version on request.

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Tip 2: Quantify service and safety outcomes

Tip 2: Quantify service and safety outcomes. ANA evaluates every role against its service reputation, so numbers that demonstrate reliability matter. If you are applying from another airline, hotel, or hospitality employer, include concrete figures such as on-time performance, customer satisfaction scores, safety audit results, or incident-free service hours. Vague claims about teamwork do not differentiate you in this applicant pool.

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Tip 3: Name the ANA Group company you want to join

Tip 3: Name the ANA Group company you want to join. Generic interest in aviation is treated as weak motivation. State whether you are targeting ANA mainline, Peach, ANA Cargo, ANA Systems, ANA X, or a specific airport subsidiary, and explain why that entity specifically fits your career plan. The recruiter reading your file is hiring for one company, not for the group in the abstract.

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Tip 4: Prove your Japanese language level honestly

Tip 4: Prove your Japanese language level honestly. If you hold JLPT N2 or N1, state the level, test date, and score. If your Japanese is business-conversational but uncertified, describe the context in which you use it. Overstating language ability is a disqualifier at interview, and ANA's hiring teams will switch languages mid-conversation to confirm.

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Tip 5: Include Omotenashi evidence, not buzzwords

Tip 5: Include Omotenashi evidence, not buzzwords. Referencing Omotenashi in a cover letter without behavior to back it up reads as pandering. Describe a specific moment you anticipated a customer's need before it was voiced, handled a complaint with composure, or adapted service to cultural context. Short, concrete narratives outperform philosophical statements.

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Tip 6: Highlight DX and IT skills for eligible roles

Tip 6: Highlight DX and IT skills for eligible roles. ANA is actively hiring data engineers, cloud specialists, and DX project leads at ANA X and ANA Systems. Call out cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), data tooling (Snowflake, dbt, Python), and any airline or travel domain experience. Certifications such as AWS Solutions Architect or a Japanese 情報処理技術者 qualification earn weight.

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Tip 7: Keep formatting simple for sonar ATS

Tip 7: Keep formatting simple for sonar ATS. The sonar ATS parser reads cleanly from plain PDFs generated from Word or Google Docs. Avoid multi-column layouts, embedded tables, header or footer text, decorative icons, and image-based text. Use standard section headings in Japanese (職務経歴, 自己PR, 資格) or English equivalents so the system and the recruiter can scan identically.

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Tip 8: Close with an explicit career trajectory

Tip 8: Close with an explicit career trajectory. Japanese hiring culture favors candidates who describe a five- to ten-year arc inside the company, not a list of next jobs. State the role you want on day one, the competence you intend to build in three years, and the contribution you want to make by year five. Tie that arc to ANA's published strategy such as the 2030 fleet plan or the DX program.

ATS System: sonar ATS (by Thinkings Inc.)

ANA Group companies run their candidate pipelines on sonar ATS, a Japanese recruitment management platform developed by Thinkings Inc. and used by over 2,300 organizations, including Toyota Motor, NTT Data Group, LINE Yahoo, and the Ministry of Justice. Candidates access ANA's instance at ana-recruit.snar.jp and company-specific subdomains such as flypeach or anasystems. The platform handles new graduate and mid-career hiring in a single system, with visual flow diagrams per role, automated email and scheduling, and portal-based interview booking. Unlike Workday or Taleo, sonar ATS does not publish an external job board; almost every opening is reached by starting at the official group careers site and clicking into the sonar entry URL.

  • Register once per group company. Your sonar account is scoped to the specific subsidiary; applying to Peach and ANA mainline requires separate profiles.
  • Check the dashboard daily. Next-stage invitations and test deadlines appear inside sonar, not always as email; the email reminders can land in spam.
  • Upload PDFs under 5 MB with Japanese file names in UTF-8 to avoid encoding errors that silently truncate your submission.
  • Use the scheduling portal early. Interview slots for popular tracks (cabin crew, Global Staff) fill within hours of release.
  • Keep your entry sheet draft in a separate document. Sonar ATS text fields do not autosave reliably across sessions, and losing a 1,000-character answer to a timeout is common.
  • Verify your contact details match your resume. Recruiters filter and deduplicate in the sonar database, and mismatched phone numbers or kana spellings can delay screening.
  • Do not reapply for the same role from a new account. Sonar ATS flags duplicate candidates and ANA's recruiters will surface the older record.

Interview Culture

ANA interviews are multi-stage, highly structured, and conducted primarily in Japanese for domestic tracks.

A typical new-graduate pipeline runs group interview, individual interview, manager interview, and final interview, with an online aptitude test sitting between the entry sheet and the first in-person stage. Mid-career interviews compress this to two or three rounds but add deeper technical probing with the hiring manager and a future peer. The group interview is the most culturally distinctive stage. Four to six candidates sit with two interviewers and take turns answering the same questions, often with a short group discussion exercise that requires you to build on others' points rather than dominate. Interviewers watch for composure, listening behavior, and whether you make the group's answer better, not just your own. Interrupting, over-talking, or treating the exercise as a debate will fail you. Individual interviews test motivation, self-awareness, and fit. Expect the classic Japanese trio: 志望動機 (why this company and role), 自己PR (what defines you professionally), and gakuchika or equivalent (what you committed to in school or a previous job and what you learned). Cabin crew candidates also answer service scenarios such as handling a distressed passenger or a cultural misunderstanding on board. Global Staff and headquarters roles include behavioral questions delivered in English, often about leadership, ambiguity, and cross-cultural work. Etiquette carries real weight. Arrive ten minutes early, bow before entering the room, wait to be invited to sit, present any documents with both hands, and close the door gently on exit. Business attire is conservative: a dark suit, white shirt or blouse, minimal accessories, and polished black shoes. For cabin attendant interviews, grooming checks are explicit and include hair, nails, posture, and bearing. What ANA probes for underneath the questions is consistent across roles: safety mindset, attention to detail, the ability to absorb and enact service standards without ego, willingness to work inside a strong hierarchy, and long-term commitment to the company. Candidates who answer quickly and confidently but cannot explain why their answer is right tend to fail the final interview, where executive directors are listening for judgment and maturity over polish.

What ANA Holdings Looks For

  • Demonstrable safety mindset, with concrete examples of how you prevented problems rather than reacting to them.
  • Service orientation grounded in Omotenashi, shown through behavior in past roles rather than through vocabulary.
  • Japanese language ability at business level for domestic tracks; bilingual Japanese and English for Global Staff and headquarters roles.
  • Team-first posture, including the discipline to make a group answer better in a group interview rather than winning it.
  • Long-term career intent at ANA, with a credible five- to ten-year arc inside the specific group company you applied to.
  • Composure under pressure, tested by rapid question sequencing, scenario prompts, and deliberately ambiguous exercises.
  • For engineering and DX roles, hands-on experience with cloud platforms, data pipelines, or airline domain systems and a bias toward shipping.
  • Cultural fit with Japanese corporate norms, including hierarchy, consensus-building (nemawashi), and careful written communication.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to speak Japanese to apply to ANA Holdings?
It depends on the track. For cabin crew, airport services, ground handling, and most domestic operations roles, business-level Japanese is effectively required because training, safety briefings, and customer interaction happen in Japanese. Global Staff (clerical and headquarters roles), select IT and DX positions at ANA Systems and ANA X, pilot roles at Air Japan, and overseas station jobs can be viable for candidates with limited Japanese, though English and Japanese combined is strongly preferred. If you hold JLPT N2 or N1, say so clearly in your resume. If your Japanese is conversational but uncertified, be honest; ANA interviewers will switch languages during the interview to verify your real level.
What ATS does ANA Holdings use, and how does it affect my application?
ANA Group companies run on sonar ATS, a Japanese recruitment management platform from Thinkings Inc. You apply through ana-recruit.snar.jp or a company-specific subdomain such as flypeach or anasystems. The platform handles new graduate and mid-career hiring, schedules interviews, administers aptitude tests, and issues the naitei (job offer). Practical implications: keep your resume in plain, single-column PDF format so the parser reads it; check the sonar dashboard daily because invitations do not always arrive by email; and use separate accounts if you apply to more than one ANA Group company, since pipelines are not shared across subsidiaries.
When does ANA Holdings open new graduate recruitment each year?
ANA Holdings typically opens 新卒採用 (new graduate) applications around March of the year before entry, following Japan's standard shinsotsu hiring calendar. For the FY2026 intake (entering April 2026), applications opened on March 1, 2025, across approximately 37 group companies, with roughly 3,000 positions in total and about 815 at ANA proper. Individual tracks close on different dates through the following summer. Check ana.co.jp/group/recruit for current cycle timing, because deadlines and required documents vary by company and role, and cabin crew cycles sometimes run separately from Global Staff and engineering cycles.
What is the difference between 新卒採用 and 中途採用 at ANA?
新卒採用 (shinsotsu) is Japan's new graduate hiring system. Candidates must be within roughly three years of graduation, not currently employed in a full-time career role, and they enter in a single cohort on April 1 with standardized training. 中途採用 (chuuto) is mid-career hiring for candidates with prior full-time work experience; it runs year-round, role by role, and start dates are negotiated individually. The two tracks use the same sonar ATS infrastructure but have different entry sheets, interview structures, and compensation frameworks. Choose the correct track before applying; applying to the wrong one is a common reason for rejection.
How hard is the ANA cabin crew interview?
Candidates on Glassdoor rate the All Nippon Airways interview experience at roughly 3.17 out of 5 for difficulty, with cabin crew and flight attendant roles reported as the hardest tracks. The pipeline typically includes a group interview, a panel interview with a senior manager, a written test covering language and communication, a grooming check, and a swimming test for safety qualification. Competition is intense because ANA is expanding cabin crew hiring substantially for FY2026. Preparation that helps: practice group-interview etiquette, study ANA's service philosophy and recent route announcements, rehearse answers to scenario questions in both Japanese and English, and confirm your TOEIC score meets the target (around 700 for ANA mainline).
Does ANA Holdings hire foreigners for headquarters roles?
Yes, but selectively. ANA hires non-Japanese nationals into Global Staff positions, certain IT and DX roles at ANA Systems and ANA X, pilot positions at Air Japan, and overseas station assignments. Public data does not specify the exact share of non-Japanese employees at headquarters, but the group states openly that it is investing in global talent development and has a program to bring locally hired overseas employees into Japan-based departments as trainees. Realistically, a non-Japanese candidate applying to a Tokyo headquarters role should expect most interviews and daily work to happen in Japanese, and long-term career progression typically requires business-level Japanese regardless of the role's initial language requirements.
What kind of IT and engineering roles is ANA Holdings hiring for?
ANA is hiring actively for digital transformation, data engineering, cloud infrastructure, and software development, primarily through ANA Systems (group IT) and ANA X (the digital platform subsidiary). Focus areas include cloud migration, data platforms, airline operations systems, passenger service systems, and customer-facing digital products. The group states its FY2024 DX training produced about 114 specialists and saved roughly 1.45 billion yen. Candidates with cloud certifications (AWS, Azure, GCP), data tooling experience (Python, SQL, Snowflake, dbt), and prior work in aviation, travel, or large-scale B2C digital platforms are well positioned. Japanese language ability is preferred and becomes more important for senior roles.
What should I know about ANA Holdings' recent business direction before interviewing?
Three items matter in 2026 interviews. First, ANA Holdings approved its largest-ever aircraft order in February 2025: 77 aircraft from Boeing, Airbus, and Embraer, worth approximately 14.5 billion US dollars, with deliveries through 2033 and a target fleet of around 320 aircraft by 2030. Second, Peach Aviation became a wholly owned subsidiary in December 2024 after ANA acquired the remaining 7 percent stake. Third, ANA announced that the AirJapan brand will wind down in 2026. Candidates should also know the group's FY2025 revenue of roughly 2.26 trillion yen and its 13th consecutive Skytrax 5-Star rating, because interviewers treat these facts as table stakes for anyone who claims serious interest in the company.
Can I apply to multiple ANA Group companies at the same time?
Yes, but each application is separate. ANA Group has approximately 37 companies with their own recruitment pages, and sonar ATS scopes each candidate profile to a specific company. You can apply to ANA mainline, Peach Aviation, ANA Cargo, and ANA Systems in parallel, but you will register a separate account for each and complete each entry sheet independently. Be careful about copy-paste answers: interviewers do compare notes across sister companies, and generic motivation statements that could apply to any subsidiary are a reliable way to fail the first round. Pick the company that actually fits your skills and career plan, and apply to others only if you can articulate a distinct reason for each.
What salary should I expect at ANA Holdings?
Public data does not specify a single figure, and compensation varies significantly by company, track, and role. For ANA mainline cabin crew, entry-level monthly base salary is generally reported in the low 200,000 yen range before allowances, overtime, and flight pay, rising with seniority. Global Staff starting salaries at ANA fall within the typical Japanese large-company range for new graduates. Mid-career compensation for engineering and DX roles at ANA Systems and ANA X is negotiated individually and benchmarked against Japanese IT employers. Japanese total compensation typically includes bonuses paid twice a year (summer and winter), commuting allowance, health insurance, pension, and generous travel benefits for ANA Group employees and immediate family.

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Sources

  1. Corporate Data - ANA HOLDINGS INC. About Us —
  2. ANA HOLDINGS Financial Results for the Year Ended March 31, 2025 —
  3. ANA HOLDINGS Expands Fleet with Decision to Place Orders for 77 Aircraft —
  4. ANA Group Celebrates 13th Consecutive SKYTRAX 5-Star Rating —
  5. Acquisition of All Shares of Peach Aviation —
  6. ANAグループ新卒採用について - 2026年度入社 —
  7. ANA Group Recruitment Portal (sonar ATS entry point) —
  8. The ANA Group's Human Resources - Sustainability —
  9. All Nippon Airways Interview Experience & Questions - Glassdoor —
  10. sonar ATS - Recruitment Management System (Thinkings Inc.) —