JAL reports Golden Week 2006 results

The JAL Group has announced the results for the traditional Japanese “Golden Week’’ vacation period, stretching this year from April 28 to May 7, 2006. The overall number of passengers traveling on JAL Group airlines was up by 2.2% on the same period last year.

During the 10-day period made up by a combination of public holidays and weekends, the number of passengers traveling on international routes operated by JAL and its subsidiaries - Japan Asia Airways (JAA) and JALways (JAZ) - totaled 181,985 down 2.8% on the same period last year. 

JAL saw an increase in passenger traffic on Korea, Transpacific and Southeast Asia routes with passenger numbers up respectively by 9.9%, 5.8% and 3.6 on last year. Passenger traffic on China routes was up 43.4%, indicating that leisure travel to this destination is back on the road to recovery.

From October last year JAL has reduced scheduled flight frequency on routes serving Honolulu and Guam and this capacity reduction, coupled with the suspension of services to Saipan, accounts for the decrease in the number of passengers able to travel with JAL to Pacific tourist destinations.

The seat load factor for international routes was 66.8%, up 4.8 percentage points on last year.

JAL Group’s Japan domestic Golden Week passenger reservations totaled 1,282,789 up 3% on last year’s results. This moderate increase in domestic passenger traffic enabled JAL to post a positive result for the JAL Group over 2006 Golden Week period. 

Japan domestic routes seat load factor was 66.1%, up 1.9 percentage points when compared to the same period last year.

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