Should public funds be used to bail out big companies like JAL?

Monday 28th September, 03:00 AM JST

› Login to comment

Latest 15 of 25 Total Comments Show All

gogogo at 01:15 PM JST - 29th September

noborito: Yep exactly.
Beelzebub at 09:02 PM JST - 29th September

I don't get it: Japanese do such a great job with their trains. (Well, the Shinkansen anyway.) Why can't they figure out how to plan airports and run profitable airlines?
smithinjapan at 11:13 PM JST - 29th September

The government will use your money and mine to bail out JAL, because they would never let the airline fail while it's called 'Japan Airlines'. And once JAL receives the bailout money they'll instantly jack up airfares for the upcoming December holiday season citing sudden 'unforeseeable rises in oil costs that will last until January 7th', while cutting maintenance funding and staff.
usaexpat at 06:36 AM JST - 30th September

mindovermatter: When it comes to airlines that's not a Jaqpan only thing. The US wouldn't let Richard Branson operate an airline in the States, he had to have an American partner with a 51% interest
jbro888 at 01:03 PM JST - 30th September

umm, the american economy is not 100% capitalism. im sorry to say
koneko22 at 02:26 PM JST - 1st October

Lower the airfare prices from the US to Japan...
cow76 at 04:22 PM JST - 1st October

I'm seeing a lot of right-wing contradiction over these bailouts. Bush bailed out the banks and that was fine because, hey, it was Bush. Then Obama bailed out GM and suddenly America's gone Soviet? You guys seriously make it hard for anyone else to take you seriously because there's nothing the Republicans can do that you'll criticise and nothing the Democrats can do that you won't.
sf2k at 05:12 PM JST - 1st October

it happens anyway, so the question is moot. Also it will continue to happen as jet fuel is priced out of the ability for a business to operate. Nationalization or bailouts are a normal step in the decline of any industry "too big to fail". Stupid, but true.
Hephatsheput at 04:21 AM JST - 2nd October

The whole reason for collecting taxes is for funds from the lower and middle classes to be used to save companies when these working class people make mistakes at work. Management jobs must be saved at all costs.
sfjp330 at 04:27 AM JST - 2nd October

You need to have govenment funds and ANA merging as a partner for JAL. Two major airlines in Japan for domestic flight is managable but for international flight, this has to be reduced to one company for survival.
helloklitty at 10:13 PM JST - 2nd October

JAL,

Please get out. Let foreigners run the airlines.
Ah_so at 11:36 PM JST - 2nd October

Personally I always use Korean Air and change planes, avoiding any need to go to Narita Airport ever.
rajakumar at 10:20 PM JST - 3rd October

Many airlines out there,let JAL aircrafts be leased to them or bought by them.
Eurasiatrash at 12:04 PM JST - 4th October

mindovermater - what you state is simply untrue. Japan does NOT limit foreign ownership of publicly traded companies like a lot of other countries do. A couple of examples that spring to mind just off the top of my head are Thailand and India, where you have a special foreign board where the stock trades for non-domestic entities. One quick look at the holders list for JAL shows the 11th biggest shareholder as a foreign fund. A lot of other countries opposes foreign ownership of power companies and infrastructure, something that is NOT limited in Japan.

As to the question of whether the J-gov't should allow JAL to fail, why not ask the public? In the end it will be your taxes paying to bail the company out. Another question to ask would be, will it be cheaper in the long run to support JAL? Letting the company fail might have greater implications as a bankrupcy not only affects the company in question, but all other companies, foreign and domestic, affiliated with JAL. Not to mention all the job that are likely to be lost.
dracpoo2 at 03:31 PM JST - 2nd November

If the public purse is to be used to help JAL, then they should in turn help the public more. Stop the hiking of airfares on holidays. On some routes there is almost a hundred percent added to airfares on holidays. I have experienced a jump from 18,000 yen to 42,000 yen just because of a holiday, sure enough, broken hearted, I had to cancel. I think that more people would travel then, instead of doing everything in their power to avoid those days. Be smart, better small gain than big loss.