Japan Airlines Corporation announced today, the consolidated financial results of the JAL Group for FY2008, the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009.

As demand for air transport weakened due to the effects of the global financial crisis, the JAL Group's core business of air transportation, and its other airline-related and travel-related businesses sustained sharp declines in earnings. Coupled with the removal of former consolidated subsidiaries of the JAL Group from the consolidated statement through the sale of shares or the change in status to an affiliate, the total consolidated operating revenue for FY2008 declined 12.5% versus the previous year to end at 1,951.1 billion yen.

International passenger yield rose by 8.0%, but demand measured in total revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) fell by 13.6%, resulting in the revenue from international passenger operations to decrease by 50.7 billion yen from the year before to 703.5 billion yen. While the domestic passenger segment saw an initial increase in revenue of 0.8 billion yen in the first three quarters of FY2008, for the full year a 1.6% decrease in revenue was eventually logged, a 10.8 billion yen decrement compared to the same period last year, as the domestic economy started its gradual decline in the last quarter.

Albeit all sales-promotion efforts, upward revisions in the fuel surcharge, and an increase in the ratio of short-haul routes at the same time as a reduction in supply capacity, international cargo revenue was 152.1 billion yen, down by 36.0 billion yen year-on-year as a result of the stark slump in exports that was caused by the worsening economy as well as the strong yen in the second half of this reporting period.

Cost-cutting measures implemented since FY2007 continued across the board within the JAL Group, and together with cost reduction actions from the reformation of its operating structures that were originally planned for FY2009 being bought forward, a total reduction of 138.3 billion yen in operating expense was achieved in FY2008.

Despite the significant reduction in operating costs, the sharp decline in operating revenue resulted in an operating loss of 50.8 million yen and an ordinary loss of 82.1 billion yen is posted for FY2008.

After adding to the extraordinary gains from sales of investment in securities of JALCard, the JAL Group net income decreased 80.1 billion yen from last year's figure to a final net loss of 63.1 billion yen.