Yoroku

Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey," features space planes operated by Pan American World Airways (Pan Am). At the time the film came out in 1968, Pan Am was the United States' flag carrier.

For Japanese living at a time when overseas travel was something people admired, the Pan Am logo was a symbol of American affluence. But by 2001, the airline had already disappeared. The carrier collapsed in 1991, and the brand name alone was carried on by another company.

It was the debt that emerged in the 1970s that claimed the life of Pan Am, which had dominated the world's skies against a background of American power and prosperity. After the collapse, the United States was described as a country without a flag carrier. It is a rule of the market economy that if a company loses out to competition, then it will disappear, even if is an airline representing a great country.

Japan Airlines was born shouldering the earnest desire of Japanese in the postwar period to once again take to the skies. The airline was semi-private until 1987, when it became fully privatized. But for Japan Airlines, being a flag carrier appeared to have meant that it relied on the government to foot the bill, and the airline's chronic deficits brought on by high costs were preserved.

In addressing the issue of Japan Airlines' financial reconstruction, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Seiji Maehara scrapped a panel of experts set up by the former government administration and set up a new team of specialists to consider how to revitalize the airline's business. The team will lead Japan Airline's business plans, and is set to outline the framework in about a month.

As a flag carrier under politics of the past, Japan Airlines was saddled with such burdens as being made to fly on unprofitable routes due to the construction of regional airports. Will the change of government administration open the way to revival and independence for Japan Airlines? It is not only the directors of futuristic films who are watching the situation. ("Yoroku," a front-page column in the Mainichi Shimbun)