Japan Air to cut
From staff and wire reports
10% of work forceTOKYO -- Japan Airlines will cut its ground work force by about 10 percent and nearly halve the number of its directors in an effort to reduce its debt and improve profitability, the company said today.
The airline, Japan's largest, will slash 3,600 on-the-ground jobs by the fiscal year ending March 2002 and reduce the number of its directors to 15 from the current 28 this year, the company said in a news release.
The restructuring aims to cut debt by about $850 million to $12 billion, and to achieve an annual parent pretax profit of $255 million by March 2002.
JAL is an important factor in Hawaii tourism, serving Honolulu three times a day from Tokyo, three a day from Osaka and one a day each from Nagoya, Fukuoka and Sapporo. It has daily Tokyo-Kona service, six Honolulu flights a week from Sendai, two a week from Hiroshima and one a week from Niigata.
Last summer, JAL cut its Honolulu work force by 100. They were all able to find jobs in a separate JAL ground-service subsidiary, but the restructuring and similar changes at mainland airports saved the airline money.
JAL also said today that it will reorganize the operations of some of its flight units, defer deliveries of 12 new airplanes and retire three fleets of aircraft ahead of schedule.
