JAL firms move to cut jobs ahead of group`s official restructuring plan

TOKYO, Oct. 7 Kyodo -
Two group firms of loss-making Japan Airlines Corp. have already carried out
job cuts by soliciting early retirements before the airline officially decides
on a restructuring plan for the group, sources familiar with the matter said
Wednesday.
Japan's top airline submitted a draft restructuring plan to the government in
September including the elimination of around 6,800 group employees, or about
14 percent of the overall workforce, over the next three years.
The government recently set up a five-member task force to reassess the
turnaround plan, but it is likely that the airline will still need to implement
drastic job cuts on a similar scale under any plan.
Jalpak Co., which operates overseas package tours, solicited applications for
an early retirement program for about a month from early July and received just
less than 60 applications. The company plans to raise efficiency by shifting
its retail operations in Japan to units of another JAL subsidiary, JAL Sales
Co., the sources said.
Another subsidiary, Hotel Nikko Osaka Co., also offered an early retirement
package as part of measures to adjust its workforce after ending operation last
March of a hotel adjacent to the Universal Studios Japan theme park.
But the sources did not disclose the exact number of people who applied for
early retirement.
Meanwhile, JAL said Wednesday that it and group companies carried a total of
1,039,603 passengers on international routes in August, down 4.3 percent from a
year earlier.
The decline in passenger numbers slowed for a second consecutive month as JAL
scrapped fuel surcharges from July to September on top of summer demand for
flights.
The JAL group also carried 3,715,527 passengers on domestic routs in August,
down 10.1 percent.
On a preliminary basis, passengers aboard international JAL flights increased 5
percent in September for the first year-on-year gain since December 2007.
==Kyodo