Trouble-plagued Japan Airlines is close to stopping service on four international routes by this fall, including one from Kansai International Airport to Los Angeles and others from Narita airport to Las Vegas, sources said Thursday.

The move comes as the nation's leading carrier grapples to come up with a rebuilding plan after losing customers scared off by a string of safety mishaps involving maintenance crews and flight attendants. It has also been hit by surging fuel costs.

On Monday, the transport ministry gave JAL a second improvement order to augment its safety measures in view of its continuing problems.

If JAL follows through with the route cuts, it will have terminated 10 routes in a span of roughly one year, which is unprecedented for a major airline. Since last October, the carrier has quit six routes, including runs between Fukuoka and Honolulu operated by a subsidiary.

JAL is placing priority on profitable routes and hopes to bring its international services back into the black by 2007, the sources said.

JAL will stop flying the daily Kansai International-Los Angeles route in October and the three weekly flights between Narita airport and Las Vegas from the end of September.

The Hiroshima-Seoul route and flights linking Komatsu, Ishikawa Prefecture, with the South Korean capital will be terminated sometime after late March, the sources said.

In addition, JAL may stop flying its daily flight between Kansai airport and Sydney via Brisbane as early as late March 2007, they said.

To keep the adverse effects of its pullbacks to a minimum for the areas affected, JAL will ask other carriers to increase capacity through such means as flying larger planes on similar routes, the sources added.

Industry insiders say competition has intensified for the proposed routes due to the rise in cheap package tours, and that the profit margin for carriers is slim. All Nippon Airways withdrew from all routes linking Japan and Australia in 1998.

Due to such factors as high fuel prices, JAL is expecting net losses of 47 billion yen for the year to this March.

JAL's revival plan was formulated in November, and a review of international routes is a pillar of the plan. It is pinning its hopes on a strategy of withdrawing from low-profit routes to focus on securing growth in more prospective areas, including China flights. It is also negotiating a 10 percent cut in employee base pay with its unions.

ANA adds new flight

OSAKA (Kyodo) All Nippon Airways said Thursday that it will add another weekly round-trip flight between Tokyo's Haneda airport and Kansai International Airport off Osaka in April, bringing the total number of flights on the route to eight.