The move comes after the transport ministry’s supervision of JAL’s management, including restrictions on new route openings, ended in March. The government supervision started after JAL, which went bust in 2010, achieved business rehabilitation on the back of powerful public support.

Demand for flights to Australia and Hawaii remains solid because the risk of terrorism is relatively low compared with such areas as Europe, which has been hit by a series of terror attacks recently.

For Australia, the airline currently offers one daily flight service between Narita International Airport in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, and Sydney. It plans to open a new route connecting Narita and Melbourne, the second-biggest city in Australia, the sources said.

JAL plans to revive flights linking Narita and Hawaii’s Kona, after it ended the service in 2010, to counter its arch-rival, All Nippon Airways, a unit of ANA Holdings Inc.  which is slated to introduce the Airbus A380 large jet on its Narita-Honolulu route in spring 2019, the sources said.

Meanwhile, JAL will consider reducing flights to France in response to a fall in the number of tourists to the country amid fears of terror attacks. Specifically, the carrier will suspend its Narita-Paris route while keeping intact its services between Tokyo International Airport at Haneda and Paris, according to the sources.

JAL will study the possibility of reducing the number of its flights linking Seoul with Narita and Haneda or suspending some of the flights, as airfares for flights to South Korea are expected to decline due to an increase in services by low-cost carriers. (Jiji Press)