Online BusinessJAL to ink foreign capital tie-ups by mid-October
Japan Airlines Corp is planning to agree on capital tie-ups with foreign airlines by mid-October and to cut 6,800 group employees over the three years through March 2012 as part of its restructuring program, its president Haruka Nishimatsu has said.
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Nishimatsu made the comments after submitting an outline of JAL"s business improvement plan to an expert panel set up by the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry tasked with monitoring the turnaround of the loss-making airline.
Japan"s top airline is currently in separate talks with the world"s two biggest air carriers - Delta Air Lines Inc and American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp - to receive capital investments, a move which would drastically alter the power balance in the global aviation industry.
While the details of any capital tie-up have not been decided, sources familiar with the matter said earlier that the Air France-KLM Group and Korean Air are also studying making capital injections.
As part of its restructuring program, JAL will carry out drastic job cuts and route suspensions mainly of international flights linking Chinese cities with Tokyo and Osaka, moves that will diminish flight-related sales by 20 per cent but save operating expenses by 30 per cent from fiscal 2008 levels over the next three years.