JAL loses $1.5 billion in first half of the year

STRUGGLING national carrier, Japan Airlines (JAL), has posted a US$1.5 billion loss for the first half of the financial year. Its debt now stands at $9.5 billion.JAL’s president, Haruka Nishimatsu, said that he and the other JAL senior management won’t be leaving and will stay on while the airline recovers. “We feel very great responsibility,” he says.The airline’s recovery is still uncertain, however, certainly where help for that recovery will come from. JAL is being courted by other airlines eager to cash in on its misfortune but JAL itself is still pinning its hopes on a Japanese government rescue package, if it manages to show sufficient willingness to cut costs and make swinging changes.Part of that is – like BA – trying to cut its pension burden but there have also been widespread cuts across its network and there is talk of cutting 14 per cent of its global workforce.
 

Share this story