Yesterday I blogged about how local governments are stilling campaigning against Japan Airlines' (JAL) plan of route suspensions. Nikkei reports are bit more details of yesterday's meeting and JAL's current restructuring plan. Nikkei's report titled 'JAL's Rehab Could Be Delayed By Local Govt Opposition" says JAL has scrapped its extended route suspensions plan and the current plan is much closer to its original one.
The Japanese local governments are pushing the ruling party DPJ to pressure JAL. Great! Isn't government making JAL to fly those unprofitable airports is only of the main cause of JAL's failure? Some people just never learned from their mistakes! The Senior Vice Transport Minister Kiyomi Tsujimoto said,
"Regions that will be left without any flight network will face financial damage and that must be discussed." (Nikkei)
Um...OK last week the Transport Minister Seiji Maehara said JAL must cut more routes (including the profitable ones) to avoid second bankruptcy filing, which he later contradicts himself and said JAL has no cash flow problem and 2nd bankruptcy filing is unlikely...
So, first it's Maehara giving mixed and confusing information, then now the Sr. Vice Transport Minister tries to do the exact opposite of what his Chief wants. Are you guys trying to help JAL or to sabotage JAL? Please either tell the same consistent story or shut up. The Transport Ministers are supposed to help solve JAL's issues not the other way round. Learn from the previous administration's mistakes and let the company decides on its own. JAL needs to have the final say on which routes to cut and makes the decisions on its own (ok maybe involve the bankers too because they are financing it). The government should be supportive and not keep flip-flopping every week. Instead of pressuring JAL to keep the routes, find another solution. Approach LCCs or the Dark Side and see what they can do. Go lower the ridiculous landing fees. Stop making the decisions for JAL. You made the decision to let ETIC lead JAL's restructuring and stick to the plan.
Unfortunately, after the government's protests, JAL's plan of consolidating flights at Nagoya at Chubu is out and so is the plan of dropping flights between Kansai and Bangkok (wow great news for fumitani's parents :P). So the plan is now almost the same as the one from March which plans to cut 16 international routes and 31 domestic ones. And Narita-Sao Paolo is still on the list...
This doesn't make any sense to me. This essentially mean no cut in October? Or did they mean the 16 routes JAL will cut on top of the already suspended routes. The numbers don't add up. This is so confusing and it will be really sad to see JAL goes down the same road as before and is pressured to keep some unprofitable routes :(
Things will clear up a bit when JAL CEO Dr. Inamori gives an update on the restructuring progress at the press conference scheduled on Wednesday.
Related Posts:
Local governments continue to protest against JAL's route suspensions
Rumor: List of 29 JAL international routes to be suspended by March 2011
Rumor: List of 31 JAL domestic routes to be suspended
Rumor: Frequency reductions on 7 NRT routes
Similar Posts:
ANA is pissed
MLIT's original suspension plan: 46 international suspensions
Rumor: Frequency reductions on 7 NRT routes
0 Comments:
Post a Comment