Representatives of the Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan submitted a letter to Transport Minister Takao Fujii on April 15, requesting that the country's high aviation-related charges and taxes be reduced.
The presidents of the country's three major airlines -- Japan Airlines Co., All Nippon Airways Co. and Japan Air System Co. -- said the fees and taxes are "particularly" expensive in Japan and should be reduced to the international level, which they said is about one-third of Japanese rates.
"We have cut back on costs, except the aviation-related fees and taxes, by more than 25 percent in the past five years. But these charges are increasing. We have a strong sense of crisis in surviving full-scale global competition," Kichisaburo Nomura, ANA president and current chairman of the association, told a joint press conference.
Among the fees and taxes are a landing fee and an aviation fuel tax, which is 26,000 yen per liter and charged only to aircraft serving domestic routes. The three carriers said they paid a total of about 330 billion yen in the fees and taxes in fiscal 1996.