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JAL now operates maindeck capacities again after many years. On 19 February Japan Airlines began operating scheduled flights with its own full-freighters again. A Boeing B767-300ERF joined the fleet recently, with two more coming this year. The units will serve a network stretching from Japan across Taiwan, China and South Korea.
From April Japan is facing an issue, called the ‘2024 problem’, that will manifest itself mainly on the country’s roads. When the legal limit to the number of hours of overtime truck drivers are allowed to perform enters into force, then there’s a risk that around a third of the freight in the country will no longer be transported.
Solutions from the air could provide a remedy. However, Japan Airlines (JAL) is only planning to deploy its three wide-body freighters little by little domestically. Initially they’ve been earmarked to link Japan’s Nagoya Chubu and Tokyo Narita airports with hubs in eastern Asia.
JAL’s return to the full-freighter business is being carried out in cooperation with DHL Express. In November 2023 the CEP services provider launched its expanded ‘Central Asia Hub’ in Hong Kong, which ties together all the regional threads from its ‘North Asia Hub’ in Shanghai,
its ‘South Asia Hub’ in Singapore as well as its Bangkok hub.
In December, DHL Express and JAL signed a long-term partnership for the use of the JAL freighters, which Tony Khan, the president and representative director of DHL Express Japan, described as a “milestone fortifying our air network between Japan and eastern Asia.”
Dramatic developments
The intention is to provide B2B and B2C services with a stable and sustainable airfreight network, the partners said. Yuichiro Kito, JAL’s executive officer for cargo and mail, is happy that “by deploying our own freighters for the first time in 13 years, we’ll help solve social problems and make [the planes] the engine of our business growth.” There it was, rearing its head again, the ‘2024 problem’.
JAL Cargo hasn’t grown all that much of late. In the first three quarters of the financial year ending on 31 March, its freight (+3.8%) and postal business (+2.7%) only increased nationally. Both sectors contracted in the international field (–9.4% and –20.6%).