When Japan Airlines (JAL) filed for bankruptcy protection back in January 2010, no-one was quite sure what the de facto flag carrier would look like when it emerged. Aviation-watchers generally agreed that JAL - battered by debt, unprofitable routes and the international financial crisis - would at the very least surface from court protection and reorganisation as a much smaller, leaner airline. Some suggested long-haul international routes would be all but abandoned by a much-diminished company. When Tokyo-based JAL came out of bankruptcy protection in March 2011, it was, as predicted, smaller. The airline, founded in 1951 during the Allied occupation of postwar Japan, shed some 40% of its workforce, reduced capacity and retired older, fuel-guzzling jets. It reduced wages by a fifth, pensions by nearly a third and de-listed its shares from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
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