The Tottori era and the pivot to half from non-airline businesses (2024)

Moving while the going is good — a matter of sequence

Now that airline revenue has surpassed its pre-COVID level, the decision to push deliberately into expanding non-airline businesses can be read as the inverse of a past failure: growing the next pillar while things are good. Recalling the history in which the improvement of a high-cost body was deferred in 1993 because times were prosperous, and the price was paid in the 2010 bankruptcy, one can see a consistent trace of learning in the sequence of moving to correct dependence now that demand has returned. Rather than being driven to it by crisis, the company is acting while it still has room.

That said, how far the numerical goal of half from non-airline businesses can actually be reached by stacking up miles and digital services is not something that can be foreseen as of this writing. Between the ease of raising a target and the difficulty of actually re-assembling a profit structure lies a distance. Whether the “customer’s viewpoint” championed by a president who rose from the cabin crew can be brought down from the abstraction of diversifying earnings into concrete businesses — breaking free of a single airline leg is JAL’s preparation against inviting a third crisis, and it will be tested from here on.