The government has decided to provide full support to Japan Airlines Corp., including possible infusion of public money. A task force of corporate turnaround experts has been created to help the airline, but it will not be able to resuscitate the nation's struggling top air carrier without full-scale efforts from both the workforce and management of JAL.

The main cause of JAL's pickle is high costs deriving from such factors as surplus workers, high wages, pensions with higher than normal benefits, and flights along routes that are unlikely to produce profits from the first. JAL has made efforts to improve the situation in each area, but they have been insufficient.

External factors have compounded the company's troubles. JAL had to offer flights along so-called "deficit-causing" domestic air routes after pressure to do so was exerted by central and local governments. The global recession and the outbreak of the new influenza have caused passenger numbers to drop. Talks with former employees for reducing pension benefits are not making progress.

The JAL group is expected to suffer a deficit of ¥63 billion in the business year through the end of March 2010. There is a possibility that the deficit will be even larger.

In June, JAL secured ¥100 billion in loans, some of which is guaranteed by the central government. But the airline is expected to need loans of another ¥100 billion by the end of this year. In order to win financial institutions' confidence, JAL proposed a plan to lay off some 6,800 employees by fiscal 2011, abolish operations along 29 domestic and 21 international routes, and withdraw from seven local airports. However, transport minister Seiji Maehara decided to scrap that plan and write a new one from scratch with the help of the task force.

It is hoped that the task force will come up with an effective reconstruction plan. But more important will be efforts from JAL itself, including current and even former employees, to reduce the company's costs.