JAL in talks over 50 bil. yen investment from Delta

TOKYO, Sept. 12 Kyodo -
Cash-strapped Japan Airlines Corp. is discussing a plan to receive around 50
billion yen in investment from Delta Air Lines Inc., the world's largest
airline with which JAL has entered business tie-up negotiations, industry
sources said Saturday.
JAL is also considering adding a Delta executive to its board, they said.
JAL, Japan's largest carrier, which is under a state-supervised restructuring
process, is also considering asking for several billion yen in investment from
Europe's Air France-KLM Group, the sources said.
The investments as well as some tie-up deals with Delta, including code-sharing
on some international routes, would become the pillar of the business
improvement plan that JAL needs to compile by the end of this month, they
added.
Saddled with a net loss of 99 billion yen in the April-June quarter, JAL inked
a deal in June with two state-backed lenders and three major Japanese
commercial banks to borrow a total of 100 billion yen and plans to receive
another 100 billion yen in additional loans before the end of this year.
The airline needs to present an outline of its improvement plan to a panel to
be convened next Tuesday by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and
Tourism. The plan is expected to include drastic suspensions and reductions of
loss-making international flights as well as the elimination of around 5,000
jobs in the group by fiscal 2011.
==Kyodo