Summary
The airline is in trouble, with what you would think is a weak hand. But it is inscrutable and playing a weak really well.
Analysis
For a start it gave just enough encouragement to Skyteam and Delta to get them to the table. This put pressure on oneworld partners to step forward to keep JAL in their alliance. With these two outsiders in play, JAL's management was able to go to the government to claim it needed help or foreigners would take over the company.
JAL's management has therefore been able to suddenly create demand where there should be none. In truth none of the airline's have the kind of money JAL needs. Airlines have been assembling cash for their own needs as business dries up and premium traffic shrinks. JAL could never expect that its alliance partners would pay down its debt and essentially take over the firm. The game seems all along to have been to get the Japanese state involved - but it needed the right pretext.
The "foreign" card has worked well before and is working again. The new government wants to do lots of things. Fixing JAL is a great idea. It looks like the new government is busy doing something. Of course it likely means breaking the airline apart into pieces that might work as stand alone. The cargo part of JAL is being hawked to NCA. But the banks are being asked to write off debts for equity - but this keeps the airline Japanese.
Typically of Japan, what we see going on is a small part of what is happening. It is going to be while before we see how this plays out. But knowing that change comes slowly to Japan, JAL is likely to stay within oneworld. That takes pressure off American Airlines, Qantas and British Airways, who need to hold on to their own cash. But a card still to play is the fact that the Japanese transport minister is said to like the offer from Delta Air Lines. How serious is this? Nobody can say with any certainty. This is a high stakes poker game and Japanese are inscrutable, as always.
