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Over the past half-century, air charter tours have formed a significant component of modern tourism. In Japan, international air charter services have been promoted for various purposes, such as increasing activity at regional airports, stimulating travel demand from regional areas, promoting inbound tourism, and filling extra slots at the major international airports. This study conducts a historical overview of air charter operations in Japan from the 1970s to the 2010s, focused on aviation policies and airline operations. Three case studies of charter route networks, Japan–China, Japan–Taiwan, and Japan–Russia, are analyzed to infer the goals underlying the decisions of network airlines to offer charter services in a deregulating Japanese aviation market.