Japan Airlines suffered a net loss of 94.2 billion yen in the 1997 business year after writing off accumulated deficits and losses from affiliates.
JAL officials said Friday that the writeoffs wiped out an unconsolidated pretax profit of 7.7 billion yen.
The carrier reported an operating profit of 31 billion yen on sales of 1.2 trillion yen, up 2 percent from the previous year, due to cost-cutting efforts that included reducing personnel costs as well as increasing revenue from international cargo and domestic passenger services.
The carrier plans to focus more on its airline business by restructuring unprofitable hotel and resort business overseas through writeoffs totaling 97.4 billion yen. It also plans to clear its accumulated losses, which amount to 57.6 billion yen.
Although JAL enjoyed favorable results in the first half of fiscal 1997 in both domestic and international services, it was badly affected by both the Asian financial turmoil and a drop in domestic consumption in the second half of the year, the officials said.