Asian airlines 'suffering more than most'
09-10-2009, 11:10 AM
#1
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Mar 2006
Posts: 3,333
Asian airlines 'suffering more than most'
It's a short video... Hope the link works?
FT.com / Video / Asian Aerospace International Expo and Congress
FT.com / Video / Asian Aerospace International Expo and Congress
09-10-2009, 04:52 PM
#2
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2008
Posts: 134
And then there is this:
Japan Airlines Will Be Test Case for DPJ?s Approach to Economy - Bloomberg.com
Japan Airlines Will Be Test Case for DPJ’s Approach to Economy
By Chris Cooper and Kiyotaka Matsuda
Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Japan Airlines Corp., recipient of three government bailouts since 2001, will find out soon if the rules have changed.
The Democratic Party of Japan that takes power Sept. 16 pledged to cut what incoming Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama called “wasteful” government spending. Japan Air, with 235 billion yen ($2.5 billion) in loans from a state-owned bank, likely will seek more aid after it submits a mid-term business plan by Sept. 30, according to analysts.
“I think it’s wrong for the government to provide money to a private company,” said Hirohisa Fujii, the DPJ’s leading contender to become finance minister. “The question is where you draw the line.”
Japan Air posted a 99 billion-yen loss in the first quarter, the most in at least six years, as business and leisure travel plummeted during the country’s worst postwar recession. The government set up a panel of legal and academic experts last month to help restructure the carrier, which has eight unions and has had losses in three of the last four years.
“The government will probably give more money to JAL,” said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees $645 million in assets at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co. in Tokyo, who doesn’t own the stock. “The DPJ has close ties to labor, so it would be difficult for JAL to have mass layoffs.”
Sze Hunn Yap, a spokeswoman at Japan Air, declined to comment on whether the carrier would apply for more financing.
Record Unemployment
The country’s unemployment rate reached a record 5.7 percent in July. Japan Air had 47,526 employees at the end of March, compared with 33,045 staff at ANA, Asia’s second- largest airline by sales. JAL plans to cut 1,400 administrative jobs domestically, starting next month.
Hatoyama’s DPJ defeated the Liberal Democratic Party by a landslide on Aug. 30, ousting the party that has governed Japan for all but 10 months since 1955. The DPJ platform pledged 16.8 trillion yen in economic stimulus by 2013 on child care, corporate tax cuts and tuition aid, while eliminating 9.1 trillion yen in public works spending.
Japan Air’s reorganization will be discussed in parliament without “taboos,” Hiroyuki Nagahama, shadow transport minister for the DPJ and a member of the upper house, said before the party’s election victory. He declined to comment on possible aid for JAL after the DPJ’s success.
Privatization
Asia’s biggest carrier by sales, privatized by the government in 1987, gets more than half its airline business from international travel. The company had a 25 percent drop in overseas passengers in June, the biggest decline since outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome and bird flu in 2003.
The airline predicted a full-year loss of 63 billion yen and is forecast to lose 82 billion yen, according to the median of 12 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Globally, the airline industry may lose $9 billion this year, according to the International Air Transport Association.
JAL’s first-quarter loss helped make it the worst performing stock in the Bloomberg Asia Pacific Airlines Index with a 23 percent decline this year, compared with a 22 percent gain for the index.
“JAL needs to borrow another 100 billion yen at a minimum,” said Yasuhiro Matsumoto, a credit analyst in Tokyo at Shinsei Securities Co. “It is very difficult for the government to walk away from JAL.”
Cost Cuts
Japan Air plans to cut 195 billion yen in operating costs this fiscal year through scrapping unprofitable routes, reducing fuel costs, lower wages and a shift to smaller planes.
The carrier announced last month it was negotiating with Nippon Yusen K.K. to merge air-cargo operations by April to reduce costs. JAL also is considering reducing its stake in regional carrier Hokkaido Air System Co. as part of an effort to return to profit.
The airline now is trying to persuade retirees to accept a cut in pensions that may exceed 50 percent, which JAL said would give it a one-time gain of 88 billion yen this fiscal year. That gain already is factored into its forecast of a 63 billion-yen loss this year.
More than 3,500 retirees out of approximately 9,000 intend to vote against the pension cut, according to an unofficial tally on a Web site run by The Committee to Consider the Revision of JAL’s Pension Scheme. That’s enough to block the cuts, as the Tokyo-based carrier needs a two-thirds majority to push them through.
JAL and ANA, as All Nippon is known, together account for about 90 percent of all domestic air travel within Japan. The DPJ will be forced to help Japan Air to avoid giving ANA a monopoly, Shinsei’s Matsumoto said.
“If it wasn’t an airline company, it would go bust,” Matsumoto said. “It’s difficult to have one airline dominate. The country needs at least two.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Cooper in Tokyo at [email protected]; Kiyotaka Matsuda in Tokyo at [email protected]
Last Updated: September 10, 2009 11:03 EDT
Japan Airlines Will Be Test Case for DPJ?s Approach to Economy - Bloomberg.com
Japan Airlines Will Be Test Case for DPJ’s Approach to Economy
By Chris Cooper and Kiyotaka Matsuda
Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Japan Airlines Corp., recipient of three government bailouts since 2001, will find out soon if the rules have changed.
The Democratic Party of Japan that takes power Sept. 16 pledged to cut what incoming Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama called “wasteful” government spending. Japan Air, with 235 billion yen ($2.5 billion) in loans from a state-owned bank, likely will seek more aid after it submits a mid-term business plan by Sept. 30, according to analysts.
“I think it’s wrong for the government to provide money to a private company,” said Hirohisa Fujii, the DPJ’s leading contender to become finance minister. “The question is where you draw the line.”
Japan Air posted a 99 billion-yen loss in the first quarter, the most in at least six years, as business and leisure travel plummeted during the country’s worst postwar recession. The government set up a panel of legal and academic experts last month to help restructure the carrier, which has eight unions and has had losses in three of the last four years.
“The government will probably give more money to JAL,” said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees $645 million in assets at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co. in Tokyo, who doesn’t own the stock. “The DPJ has close ties to labor, so it would be difficult for JAL to have mass layoffs.”
Sze Hunn Yap, a spokeswoman at Japan Air, declined to comment on whether the carrier would apply for more financing.
Record Unemployment
The country’s unemployment rate reached a record 5.7 percent in July. Japan Air had 47,526 employees at the end of March, compared with 33,045 staff at ANA, Asia’s second- largest airline by sales. JAL plans to cut 1,400 administrative jobs domestically, starting next month.
Hatoyama’s DPJ defeated the Liberal Democratic Party by a landslide on Aug. 30, ousting the party that has governed Japan for all but 10 months since 1955. The DPJ platform pledged 16.8 trillion yen in economic stimulus by 2013 on child care, corporate tax cuts and tuition aid, while eliminating 9.1 trillion yen in public works spending.
Japan Air’s reorganization will be discussed in parliament without “taboos,” Hiroyuki Nagahama, shadow transport minister for the DPJ and a member of the upper house, said before the party’s election victory. He declined to comment on possible aid for JAL after the DPJ’s success.
Privatization
Asia’s biggest carrier by sales, privatized by the government in 1987, gets more than half its airline business from international travel. The company had a 25 percent drop in overseas passengers in June, the biggest decline since outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome and bird flu in 2003.
The airline predicted a full-year loss of 63 billion yen and is forecast to lose 82 billion yen, according to the median of 12 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Globally, the airline industry may lose $9 billion this year, according to the International Air Transport Association.
JAL’s first-quarter loss helped make it the worst performing stock in the Bloomberg Asia Pacific Airlines Index with a 23 percent decline this year, compared with a 22 percent gain for the index.
“JAL needs to borrow another 100 billion yen at a minimum,” said Yasuhiro Matsumoto, a credit analyst in Tokyo at Shinsei Securities Co. “It is very difficult for the government to walk away from JAL.”
Cost Cuts
Japan Air plans to cut 195 billion yen in operating costs this fiscal year through scrapping unprofitable routes, reducing fuel costs, lower wages and a shift to smaller planes.
The carrier announced last month it was negotiating with Nippon Yusen K.K. to merge air-cargo operations by April to reduce costs. JAL also is considering reducing its stake in regional carrier Hokkaido Air System Co. as part of an effort to return to profit.
The airline now is trying to persuade retirees to accept a cut in pensions that may exceed 50 percent, which JAL said would give it a one-time gain of 88 billion yen this fiscal year. That gain already is factored into its forecast of a 63 billion-yen loss this year.
More than 3,500 retirees out of approximately 9,000 intend to vote against the pension cut, according to an unofficial tally on a Web site run by The Committee to Consider the Revision of JAL’s Pension Scheme. That’s enough to block the cuts, as the Tokyo-based carrier needs a two-thirds majority to push them through.
JAL and ANA, as All Nippon is known, together account for about 90 percent of all domestic air travel within Japan. The DPJ will be forced to help Japan Air to avoid giving ANA a monopoly, Shinsei’s Matsumoto said.
“If it wasn’t an airline company, it would go bust,” Matsumoto said. “It’s difficult to have one airline dominate. The country needs at least two.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Cooper in Tokyo at [email protected]; Kiyotaka Matsuda in Tokyo at [email protected]
Last Updated: September 10, 2009 11:03 EDT
09-11-2009, 07:24 AM
#3
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2007
Position: 756 left
Posts: 753
September 11, 2009
Delta Air Lines is in talks to invest in struggling Japan Airlines (JAL) and become its biggest shareholder, Japanese media said Friday.
Public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo news said Delta was in talks to invest several tens of billions of yen in JAL, Asia's largest airline by revenue, as part of a business alliance.
"I can't verify what has been reported by NHK and can't comment further at this time," said a JAL spokeswoman.
JAL is headed for its second straight loss this business year and is restructuring under state supervision after receiving a JPY100 billion credit facility backed by the government.
JAL and Delta are also talking about code-sharing on international flights, Kyodo and NHK said.
JAL reported a JPY50.9 billion operating loss for the year to March 2009 and has forecast a JPY59 billion loss for the current year, as it struggles to control costs and suffers along with other airlines due to a slump in global travel.
Delta Air Lines is in talks to invest in struggling Japan Airlines (JAL) and become its biggest shareholder, Japanese media said Friday.
Public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo news said Delta was in talks to invest several tens of billions of yen in JAL, Asia's largest airline by revenue, as part of a business alliance.
"I can't verify what has been reported by NHK and can't comment further at this time," said a JAL spokeswoman.
JAL is headed for its second straight loss this business year and is restructuring under state supervision after receiving a JPY100 billion credit facility backed by the government.
JAL and Delta are also talking about code-sharing on international flights, Kyodo and NHK said.
JAL reported a JPY50.9 billion operating loss for the year to March 2009 and has forecast a JPY59 billion loss for the current year, as it struggles to control costs and suffers along with other airlines due to a slump in global travel.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
