Japan's All Nippon Airways (ANA) is set to launch two low-cost carriers -- one for international services, one for domestic -- by sometime in the first half of 2007, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun daily.

The move by ANA, Japan's second-largest airline, would aim at competing with other low-cost carriers ahead of a planned expansion of Tokyo's Haneda Airport, which is scheduled to complete a fourth runway in 2009.

Sources quoted by the Yomiuri said that the new carriers would be subsidiaries of ANA and would be able to charge lower fares by cutting the costs of inflight services.

They added that the airline would establish the new companies either by reorganizing its five current subsidiaries or establishing totally new firms.