JAL Group International traffic doubles during Golden Week

The traditional Japanese ''Golden Week'' vacation period, stretching this year from April 28 to May 9, yielded good results for JAL Group airlines with the number of international passengers double that of the similar period in 2003, demonstrating a very significant improvement in demand trends.

International passenger traffic carried during the 12-day period, made up by a combination of public holidays and weekends, totaled 216,480 passengers (+109.8% year-on-year) flying overseas on Japan Airlines and its subsidiaries Japan Asia Airways, which flies mainly between Japan and Taiwan, and JALways, which serves mainly Pacific resort destinations. The seat load factor was 62.6%.

Last year in the same period the JAL Group carried 109,124 international Golden Week passengers.

The 2004 JAL Group Golden Week international passenger result was also 3.5% higher than that of the same period in 2002.

Japanese overseas travel demand, badly hit last year by the Iraq conflict and SARS outbreak, now shows clear signs of recovery. Provisional traffic results for the full month of April 2004 show an increase of 55% on the same month last year.

Domestic Golden Week traffic carried this year by the JAL Group totaled 1,488,487 passengers, 3.6% up on the same vacation period last year. Domestic seat load factor was 62.1%.