It has been less than a week since an unholy trifecta of a 9.0 earthquake, a tsunami and radiation leakage has hit Japan, and the fast-moving situation is yet to fully play out. Yet, some trendlines are already clear:
* Airlines are taking strikingly different postures. Japan's major carriers, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways, are flying their normal international flight schedules - at least so far - apparently unaffected by the no-fly zone declared by Japanese authorities near damaged nuclear power plants. American Airlines, which just started service from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport to Tokyo Haneda airport, is maintaining its schedule, as is Delta Air Lines, which flies to Haneda from Los Angeles and Detroit. Unchanged, too, are the schedules of Cathay Pacific Airways and Emirates. However, Taiwan's EVA Airways says it will cancel flights to Tokyo and Sapporo through the end of March. Lufthansa continues to fly to Japan is but diverting flights from Tokyo to Osaka. British Airways is still flying to Tokyo Haneda and Naritia airports but it is offering travelers who planned to fly before April 30 a chance to change travel dates through Sept. 30. The Malaysian Atomic Energy and Licensing Board is scanning flights from Japan for radiation once they arrive in Malaysia, according to a Reuters report posted Mar. 16 at http://www.airwise.com./
* Media reports say European multinational corporations are giving employees the option of going home, moving to other Asian countries or staying put in Japan, while bookings on private jets by foreigners seeking to leave Japan are soaring.
* An unspecified number of travelers are cancelling or postponing leisure and business trips to Japan, according to an Associated Press story in the Mar. 14 New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/). The Japan National Tourism Organization doesn't yet have hard figures. Nearly 10 percent of the 8.6 milion international travelers who visited Japan in 2010 are from the United States, according to the JNTO. With on-going scary radiation stories and tourism infrastructure that will take months or more to rebuild, it's highly probable that in-bound travel to Japan will slump this year - but also that subsequent campaigns to woo travelers back will result in some substantial deals in travel to Japan by year's end.
* Japan's cherry-blossom season - a prime time to visit, as my wife and I did two years ago on a delightful sakura-gazing trip - begins next month, but foreigners are likely to give it a pass this year. Of course, travel is two-way, and Japanese tourists are less likely to venture outside their country in the short term. This will hurt traditional overseas favorites such as Hawaii, which hosted nearly half of the 2.9 million Japanese who visited the U.S. in 2009. According to MarketWatch, "There have already been reports of significant cancellations, with a Starwood (Hotels and Resorts) spokesman telling Hawaii's KITV on Monday (Mar. 14) that several large tour groups, representing thousands of travelers, had cancelled their plans without booking new dates.'' (http://www.marketwatch.com)./
There is no way - and no point - in denying it: This is a terrible situation, with repercussions that go well beyond travel. Even the 24/7 pulse of Tokyo has slowed down, albeit temporarily. "In just four days,'' reports the Washington Post (http://www.washingpost.com/) "the city's metabolism has dropped, as in hibernation, preparing for the long fight ahead.''
Showing posts with label cherry blossoms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cherry blossoms. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
JAL, R.I.P.?
The airline world is abuzz with rumors about the possible bankruptcy or outright failure of Japan Airlines - JAL. Will the Japanese government rescue JAL for the fourth time in the past decade, to offset its massive losses? Will Delta Air Lines and the SkyTeam alliance lure JAL from the oneworld alliance to SkyTeam for a cool $1 billion? Will JAL opt for a $1.4 billion investment and code-share offer from oneworld's American Airlines and British Airways?
No one knows for sure what shape a reconfigured JAL could take in the weeks and months ahead. The only certainty is that it will be a very different airline, probably a smaller one. If U.S. or other foreign carriers buy into JAL, the airline will be useful to them mainly as a conduit to the rest of Asia, where civil aviation is still growing, despite the global economic downturn.
JAL, industry observers say, expanded too fast, ran with too much overhead and carries huge debt from borrowing and substantial pension obligations. Tackling all these issues will be paramount, no matter what future form this very good airline takes, or who is at the controls.
Make no mistake, JAL is a very good airline, indeed.
It recently came first in a flightstats.com survey of global airline on-time performance, just ahead of its Japanese rival, Al Nippon Airways, and Scandinavian Airlines, which came third.
Statistics aside, flying with JAL is just a very pleasant experience. I flew with JAL in April 2009, on a trip my wife and I took mainly to see Japan's justly famous cherry blossoms (the sakura). We loved seeing Tokyo's Imperial Palace, its moat lined with pink and white sakura, some branches bowing low over the water before the palace's massive stone walls. In Kyoto, the cherry blossoms softened city parks and lined the Philosophers' Walk, a narrow macadam path in central Kyoto that runs alongside a limpid stream.
Back in Tokyo, I whisked through security at Narita airport for my return flight in less than 10 minutes - a big improvement from the glacial lines I have at times endured at Narita. The JAL Sakura Lounge is one of the best I have seen anyhwere in the world, graced with lovely food, a full-bar, smoking and non-smoking sections, even a cell phone-free zone. Want to sip a beer? An automatic dispenser tilts the glass, to minimize the suds. The lounge is expansive and washed with natural light and spreads out over two levels.
Returning home in JAL business class, Japanese polish and refinement were everywhere evident. The cabin crew were gracious, the food was good, accompanied by pleasantly flowery, chilled sake. Flat-bed seats inside hard plastic shells assured privacy even as they provided much-needed rest. Lunch came in a lacquer bento box accompanied by steaming green tea. The in-flight entertainment system was on the blink for part of my flight, but that was the only glitch on a 8 hour 45 minute flight to San Francisco International Airport.
Most passengers don't know it, but JAL is an industry leader in environmental measures. The carrier has reduced its carbon emissions by 20 percent since 1990, according to Yasuroi Abe, JAL's vice president for environmental affairs. This has been done, Abe told me in an interview at JAL's central-Tokyo headquarters, by flying smaller, lighter planes, flying newer planes, even reducing weight by using lighter dishware in first- and business-class, and less paint on the outside of its 270 aircraft. In January 2009, JAL ran one engine on experimental bio-fuel during a successful test flight. Like many airlines, it hopes to come up with an environmentally friendly, affordable alternative to petroleum.
Will this accomplished airline - Japan's erstwhile national flag carrier, privatized in 1987 - survive in recognizable form? I hope so. Now, we wait.
No one knows for sure what shape a reconfigured JAL could take in the weeks and months ahead. The only certainty is that it will be a very different airline, probably a smaller one. If U.S. or other foreign carriers buy into JAL, the airline will be useful to them mainly as a conduit to the rest of Asia, where civil aviation is still growing, despite the global economic downturn.
JAL, industry observers say, expanded too fast, ran with too much overhead and carries huge debt from borrowing and substantial pension obligations. Tackling all these issues will be paramount, no matter what future form this very good airline takes, or who is at the controls.
Make no mistake, JAL is a very good airline, indeed.
It recently came first in a flightstats.com survey of global airline on-time performance, just ahead of its Japanese rival, Al Nippon Airways, and Scandinavian Airlines, which came third.
Statistics aside, flying with JAL is just a very pleasant experience. I flew with JAL in April 2009, on a trip my wife and I took mainly to see Japan's justly famous cherry blossoms (the sakura). We loved seeing Tokyo's Imperial Palace, its moat lined with pink and white sakura, some branches bowing low over the water before the palace's massive stone walls. In Kyoto, the cherry blossoms softened city parks and lined the Philosophers' Walk, a narrow macadam path in central Kyoto that runs alongside a limpid stream.
Back in Tokyo, I whisked through security at Narita airport for my return flight in less than 10 minutes - a big improvement from the glacial lines I have at times endured at Narita. The JAL Sakura Lounge is one of the best I have seen anyhwere in the world, graced with lovely food, a full-bar, smoking and non-smoking sections, even a cell phone-free zone. Want to sip a beer? An automatic dispenser tilts the glass, to minimize the suds. The lounge is expansive and washed with natural light and spreads out over two levels.
Returning home in JAL business class, Japanese polish and refinement were everywhere evident. The cabin crew were gracious, the food was good, accompanied by pleasantly flowery, chilled sake. Flat-bed seats inside hard plastic shells assured privacy even as they provided much-needed rest. Lunch came in a lacquer bento box accompanied by steaming green tea. The in-flight entertainment system was on the blink for part of my flight, but that was the only glitch on a 8 hour 45 minute flight to San Francisco International Airport.
Most passengers don't know it, but JAL is an industry leader in environmental measures. The carrier has reduced its carbon emissions by 20 percent since 1990, according to Yasuroi Abe, JAL's vice president for environmental affairs. This has been done, Abe told me in an interview at JAL's central-Tokyo headquarters, by flying smaller, lighter planes, flying newer planes, even reducing weight by using lighter dishware in first- and business-class, and less paint on the outside of its 270 aircraft. In January 2009, JAL ran one engine on experimental bio-fuel during a successful test flight. Like many airlines, it hopes to come up with an environmentally friendly, affordable alternative to petroleum.
Will this accomplished airline - Japan's erstwhile national flag carrier, privatized in 1987 - survive in recognizable form? I hope so. Now, we wait.
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