JAL Group release Year End / Holiday figures

JAL Group airlines carried 1.6 million domestic air travelers and 279,807 international passengers during the 13-day holiday period between December 27, 2003 and January 7, 2004.

International passenger traffic was just 1.6% lower than the 2002/2003-holiday season, with a total of 279,807 passengers. This indicated a remarkable recovery in demand after a turbulent year during 2003 when overseas travel demand plummeted, hit badly by the negative influence of the Iraq war and the SARS outbreaks.

JAL routes showing improvements in passenger numbers on last year's similar holiday period were Japan-Oceania (up 12%), Japan-Europe (up 6%) and Japan-China (up 9%).

Individual travelers in economy class increased, group traffic was slightly down but business class travel was almost the same as in the same holiday period the year before.

However traffic on JAL's routes in the period to the continental USA was down by nearly 2% and down by nearly 8% on Japan-Hawaii routes, lower than the reservations forecast and attributed to the ''fear of terrorism'' factor.' Traffic on South East Asia routes was 13% down, a lingering effect from the SARS outbreaks the airline said.

The domestic total of 1,636,242 passengers was 10.4% lower than the 2002/2003 tally. Part of the decline is attributed to the structure of the holiday period this year. December 29 was a working day for many Japanese and broke the holiday period in two, whereas in the previous holiday period one year before there was a continuous period of nine days for vacationing.

The airline said that another reason for the lower domestic load is that last year New Year discount ''Bargain Fares'' were available on January 1st and 2nd on Japan Air System, a group domestic carrier, whereas this year this low price (and low yield) fare was available on January 1st only, traditionally a very slack day for travel.

Domestic group leisure travel was down and JAL said it believes that this may be due to people deciding to travel overseas instead of within Japan.