TokyoTomo Travel Guide

Japan Airlines announced its consolidated results for the first three quarters covering the period from April 11 to December 31 in fiscal year 2009. The resulting net loss is 177.9 billion yen compared to the previous year’s net loss of 176.0 billion yen. Although operating expense was reduced by 19.3 percent to 1,265.6 billion yen year-on-year, operating revenue further declined by 26.6 percent to 1,144.8 billion yen, thus exceeding the rate of decline in operating expense. The international passenger business division, in particular, suffered a substantial decrease of 41.0 percent year-on-year to 336.3 billion yen in terms of operating revenue, resulting in an operating loss of 120.8 billion yen (111.9 billion yen loss in 2008) and an ordinary loss of 153.3 billion yen (127.7 billion yen loss in 2008).

The number of international passengers carried by JAL during the first three quarters declined by 8.2 percent to 8,159,881 and consequently revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) fell by 8.6 percent. However, since capacity, as measured by available seat kilometers (ASK), was reduced by 13.2 percent, its average seat load factor rose by 3.5 percentage points to 69.3 percent. Meanwhile, the number of its domestic passengers transported dipped by 11.0 percent to 28,415,288, posting a 10.8 percent decrease in terms of RPK, revenue passenger kilometers. The average seat load factor came to 59.8 percent, down by 4.9 percentage points, as ASK, available seat kilometers, were reduced by 4.5 percent.

The airline declined to comment on its future outlook as it is still formulating the rehabilitation plan.

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.

Japan Airlines aims to boost sales turnover of the package tour business on its website by 20 to 30 percent year-on-year during fiscal year 2010. The airline has recently relaunched its website and improved the search function significantly for the package tours. Previously, there were as many as 100,000 package tours including overseas and domestic travels posted on the website and its website visitors were often discouraged and gave up the search. JAL has introduced the “Spook” developed by FORCIA which specializes in search system technologies. The “FORCIA Spook” allows the visitors to search for a specified package tour easily by category such as date, departure point, destination, duration, price and theme. The airline will soon redesign its website allowing for an easier access to the new search system and also plans to start launching a special consumer sales campaign.

While the conventional search system requires its website visitor to pinpoint a specific package tour, after narrowing down the search by combinations of search items, the “Spook” features a greater flexibility allowing the visitors to choose and delete easily any search item or items retrieved. JAL’s enhanced website search function provides many specific search items including “sports,” “railways,” “family vacations,” “hotels,” “tour escort” as well as “departure dates” and “destinations”, enabling the customers to search for the product by combinations of preferred criteria according to their personal interests. The new search function is also capable of displaying the same category of popular package tours in real-time if a customer adds a new search item by category and narrows down a search for the tours.

Also, JAL plans to start selling on the website its overseas “Dynamic Package Tours” by the end of March. Meanwhile, the domestic “Dynamic Package Tours” account for 60 percent of the total sales turnover of the regular package tours sold on the website and the airline said it is convinced of its successful sales of the overseas “Dynamic Package Tours.” Although the airline declined to comment on further details, it considers that the key factor for its market penetration with the overseas “Dynamic Package Tours” is to give the customers a sense of reassurance and, for this reason, JAL intends to promote, for the time being, only the destinations where a sense of reassurance is ensured.

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.

Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways are due to terminate the counter sales functions in some of the domestic sales offices from March 31 in the wake of the decreasing number of customers visiting the town office counters. Both airlines consider improving the efficiency in expenditures now that E-ticket and on-line booking are proving more dominant among the airline customers.

JAL currently operates seven domestic sales counters. Its monorail Hamamatsucho City Air Terminal counter will be closed and replaced with the self-service check-in machines. The domestic counter sales function in the airline’s Nagoya Branch will be terminated. However, JAL will continue to operate its remaining domestic sales counters in JAL Plaza Yurakucho, Yokohama City Air Terminal and the respective city offices in Osaka and Okinawa’s Miyako and Ishigaki.

Meanwhile, ANA decided to maintain only “ANA Square” in Tokyo and the sales office in Yokohama. At Monorail Hamamatsucho City Air Terminal, the self-service check-in machines are installed to meet the customers’ needs. The rest of the airline’s domestic counter sales function in Sapporo, Osaka and Fukuoka city offices will be terminated.

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.