JAL to axe 15,000 staff by March 2011

According to the restructuring plan, Japan Airlines will cut around 15,700 jobs by March 2013 and 3,000 of these will be through early retirement. According to Kyodo News, 15,000 of these will be cut by March 2011! So JAL will carry out 95.5% of the cut within a year!

JAL expect most of the early retirement will come from JAL International Co., the airlines subsidiary. 1,000 ground staff and 250 cabin attendants will retire voluntarily. Other than early retirement, the cut will also involve natural attrition and reduction of JAL's subsidiaries.

Yomiuri Online has more details of the cut distribution (in Japanese). The distribution is as follow:

Other Subsidiaries: 16,630 -> 7,810 (-53%)
Head Office: 2970 -> 1890 (-36%)
Airport Ground Staff: 12,020 -> 9,850 (-18%)
Maintenance Staff: 6,620 -> 5,570 (-16%)
Cabin Crew: 9,440 -> 8,120 (-14%)
Pilot: 4,180 -> 3,650 (-13% cut)

When doing the cut, I hope JAL won't forgo safety. We all know what happened last time when they outsourced some of the maintenance procedures. JAL cannot afford to have another series of safety mishaps!