After a two-month delay, struggling Japan Airlines today announced details of a rehabilitation plan that will see the group cut more than 16,000 positions by the end of fiscal 2010.
In January the flagship carrier went under with $26 billion of debt in one of Japan's biggest-ever corporate failures, but has continued flying while it goes through a painful state-led restructuring process.
Since filing for bankruptcy protection in January, JAL was delisted from Tokyo's stock exchange in February and is now going through a court-led restructuring with the help of a government-backed turnaround fund.
'JAL has caused tremendous nuisance to its shareholders and creditors,' said chairman Kazuo Inamori.
The Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp said that it would inject 350 billion yen ($4.14 billion) into the JAL group, subject to approval of the rehabilitation plan with the court.
The carrier will reduce the number of old aircraft by retiring them early and will downsize its fleet by introducing mid-sized and small planes. JAL said it would achieve personnel cuts by encouraging early retirement and selling subsidiaries, reducing the group personne number to 32,600 at the end of 2010 from 48,714 at the end of 2009.
The company hopes to post a 64.1 billion yen operating profit in fiscal 2011, which it forecast to rise to 117.5 billion yen in the year to March 2013. Since filing for bankruptcy,
JAL has been reducing flights and pulling out of unpopular routes, while being eclipsed by All Nippon Airways as the top Japanese carrier in terms of passenger volume and cargo.
