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Aviation History
1995
1995 - 0071.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT the worst since the [Second World] War. This has affected the mentality of the management and we are squeezing and squeezing. It is diffi cult to lay people off, but the company has said very clearly that some staff have to go. We are now reviewing the wage and benefit system. We are going to have some contract-based cabin attendants and non-Japanese-national cabin attendants. Most importantly, without increasing manpower, we want to try to utilise our aircraft as much as possible." The airline is also delaying Boeing 747-400 deliveries and is expected to announce changes to its Boeing 777 and/or Airbus A340 delivery schedules imminently. DEREGULATION THREAT As Japan emerges from recession, however, ANA's fundamental problem is that its huge domestic operation is under threat from deregulation which will leave Japan Airlines (JAL) and Japan Air System (JAS) increasingly free to compete with it. The strong domestic yields which have underpinned ANA's growth so far will soon be history. Yamashita says: "The domestic environment is going to change quickly. For 30-40 years, the Japanese industry was controlled by the Ministry of Transport giving traffic rights. It was all regu lated. But the situation is going to change. Deregulation is coming and so is discounting. A new fare-system is going to be introduced, but we can already just file discount fares. So, from now on, volume is there, but yield will be on a downwards trend." The chosen solution is a swing in emphasis to ANA's international operations, with partic ular stress on South-East Asian routes. International capacity accounts for 25% of ANA's seats, but the airline wants to push it up to 33% or more over the next five years. It might have an even more ambitious target, but the airport-slots position at Narita and Kansai, at both of which ANA is something of a late comer, makes faster progress difficult. Yamashita says: "Overall, our international volume compared with domestic volume is small, but the total number of passengers has grown dramatically. We do not have a domes tic monopoly any more — JAL and JAS are entering, too. So, there are three major carri ers competing on some routes and double- trunks are common. "We are moving to international operations because the demand is there. There is still only 10% of Japan's population flying international ly compared with, say, 57% in Germany and 17%, even in North America. That leaves a lot of space for capacity increases. Realistically, deregulation will add domestic competition — so volume will be there, although the yield is down; but, at the same time, I can see very strong and healthy growth internationally." Examination of the statistics shows how ANA has reached its conclusion. In the six months to 30 September, 1994, 6.9 million Japanese travelled abroad — 14.2% up on the previous year. The second half of ANAs finan- ANA, the 777...and Rolls-Royce To listen to British Airways and Boeing describe the "working-together" programme, in which the manufacturer invited an unprecedented degree of customer involvement in the design of its 777, is to hear a remarkable tale indeed; one of serendipity of requirements and almost supernatural harmony between the participants. The concept worked, but conversations with ANA confirm remaining suspicions that it was Working together—great when it works not quite as elegant as is frequently painted. The 777 will play a critical role in ANA's defence of its domestic market share, and die airline has spared little effort in honing the aircraft to its requirements — beginning witli the engine selection. A senior ANA source reveals that the carrier had settled on the Rolls- Royce Trent 800 for its 777s, when, to ANA's astonishment, British Airways announced that it was spurning the Trent for die General Electric GE90. Concerned about BA's true rationale, ANA re-examined its decision and switched to the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 as the perceived most conservative choice. It is unknown by how much tliat decision swayed Japan Airlines when it later also picked the PW4000, but it seems certain that the BA move was even more costly for R-R than has been hitherto appreciated. ANA has, for now, ordered 15 A-market 777s with ten options for unspecified versions. The A-market aircraft, for domestic use, will be configured with 358 economy- and 18 business-class seats and will provide partly fleet-replacement and partly growth. The car rier is "interested" in the proposed, stretched, A-market version, but not so much in the B-market intercontinental aircraft. When the first aircraft arrives in October it will have several features which ANA was largely instrumental in specifying. The airline's manager of 777 engineering, planning and administration, Kazuo Matsuura, notes: "'Working together' takes a lot of resources to keep the programme going, which is why [777 cus tomers] Thai and Emirates were not so interested and, for example, BA and United were." He continues illuminatingly: "United and ANA agreed on a lot, but BA had a ten dency to make the aircraft meet its requirements, which were a bit different. United's experience was brought in by individual engineers going to Seattle. Unlike United, BA could not send their people frequently out there and they put a big team out there — they were good people, but some of them were a bit young." Both, Matsuura implies, worked differently from the Japanese carriers. He says: "Japanese companies like to have consensus before they say something. We were a little slow in decision-making, but then we went in together. We try to get data togedier to sup port something rather than just a feeling of what people said and thought. But the ANA and JAL relationship was interesting —JAL joined a bit later and I diink that they were a little bit reluctant to participate afterwards, once the aircraft was configured." He declares, however, that "...overall, it was a success". Altogether, ANA raised some 500 issues with Boeing, about one-third of which were essentially requests for more information, but the remainder implied some kind of design change. ANA, Matsuura says, was "heavily responsible" for the option of a non-folding wing, warning Boeing that it might not buy the aircraft otherwise. Along with other carri ers, it persuaded Boeing to "...jump from the cliff and go for it" in offering the universally popular option of radial as well as bias-ply tyres. It demanded, and got, a slight fuselage- length increase, to improve fuel economy, but was actually more concerned about the air craft design life. Matsuura explains that, as a short-haul operator, ANA was worried about fatigue life and persuaded Boeing to offer a 44,000-cycle guarantee, rather than the planned 40,000, to support a 20-year life at ANA. No design changes were involved. Matsuura also tells of an ANA/United collaboration, explaining: "The height from the ground to the fuelling point is considerably higher than on current aircraft. United want ed the point closer to the fuselage so that they could use existing ground equipment; but I didn't want the trucks to hit the aircraft, so we moved it out to the leading edge." Indeed, he says, by far ANA's greatest concerns were with maintainability and reliability. It is in the field of 777 maintenance that ANA will next break down barriers, with a far-reaching co-operation agreement with JAL which is hoped to save each carrier ¥8- 9 billion ($80-90 million) over five years. It will cover at least the joint purchase of spares and the joint development of training manuals, but other elements have been slower than expected in coalescing. Matsuura explains: "As an industry, we have grown up with different ways of doing business, so it is not an easy dialogue in the field. It is not so easy to merge the two cultures, even though we speak the same language. The authorities have different people to support the two airlines and our documents are different from one company to the other company." FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 11 - 17 January 1995
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