NYK puts the pressure on JAL Cargo sale

REALISING its results for the quarter ended 31 December, management of Nippon Cargo Airlines parent NYK, felt compelled to add a statement that negotiations with Japan Airlines about a merger of NCA with JAL Cargo had not come to a conclusion but were still going on.The declaration came on 29 January, hours after a press report appeared that a senior NYK official had allegedly indicated the talks might be broken off. Only weeks earlier NYK’s board had commented that the negotiations were progressing slower than anticipated, so the merger would commence by the summer at the earliest. According to the original timetable, the framework talks were supposed to be completed by late March to pave the way for the amalgamation to start in April.The report about NYK’s loss of interest in JAL Cargo cited the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp of Japan’s plan to sell the struggling carrier’s freight division or find a majority shareholder who would take over its staff of about 3,000 employees. Allegedly NYK balks at this idea.
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