The cuts will reduce the airline’s administrative staff from about 5,800, according to Kojiro Waki, a JAL spokesman.

Japan Air will form a new department called the “Customer Experience Division” to improve service and merge three subsidiaries to create one subsidiary called JAL Sky. The JAL Sky unit will be in charge of airport operations and service, according to a statement released on Aug. 28.

The airline, which is due to be the 787’s second operator with a contract for 35 of the planes, has been informed of the delay and hasn’t received a new schedule, Tokyo-based spokesman Stephen Pearlman said today in a telephone interview. Boeing’s spokesman in the city, Takahide Miyatsu did not return calls.

The 787 was due to enter service with All Nippon Airways Co. in May this year after Boeing’s shortest-ever flight-test program, arriving as airlines clamored for more-efficient planes to counter higher fuel prices. The Dreamliner has instead been beset by parts shortages, hitches with suppliers and a recent strike, setting Boeing further behind in its goal of surpassing Airbus SAS.

“It’s like deja vu, all these things coming back to haunt us — fasteners, flight-testing concerns and further delivery delays,” Rob Stallard, an analyst at Macquarie Research Equities in New York, said in an interview yesterday.

The first Dreamliner was rolled out of the hangar in July 2007 and should have had its first flight a month later. Boeing has said all its programs will face at least a day-for-day delay from the eight-week machinists’ strike that ended Nov. 2 and kept the 787 from flying for the first time this quarter under a schedule revised after earlier delays.

No New Schedule

First customer All Nippon said in September that Boeing had told it before the strike to expect the plane in August 2009, which would have been 15 months late. The airline hasn’t been given a new schedule, spokesman Kazuyuki Imanishi said today.

Japan Air, initially due to get its first Dreamliner this August, said in September that the first delivery would be in October 2009 and it would receive four or five planes a year until March 2017. The carrier had originally planned to take delivery of its final plane by the end of March 2014.

Chicago-based Boeing, led by Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney, has lost about 60 percent of its market value since the first 787 delay in October 2007. The stock rose 2 percent to $41.68 yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

While Airbus has also suffered program delays, the Toulouse, France-based company’s 525-seat A380 superjumbo successfully completed a test flight three months after its roll-out and encountered problems only once it entered production. The world’s largest planemaker, a unit of European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., also had to redesign its A350 model, pushing production back to 2013 from as early as 2010.

New Techniques

Boeing is using new carbon composites instead of aluminum in much of the 787, adding complications to a new manufacturing process. Suppliers in the U.S., Italy and Japan are supposed to build 70 percent of the plane and to ship completed sections to Boeing’s Everett, Washington, factory for final assembly.

The different languages and time zones involved hampered communication and stymied Boeing’s ability to fix problems that cropped up, Joseph Campbell, an analyst with Barclay’s Plc in New York, said in an interview yesterday.

“This program now has reached a level of delays and things going wrong that are really frustrating and beyond expectations” for both observers and long-time Boeing engineers, said Campbell, who has analyzed the company since the early 1980s. “It’s out of character for Boeing. Normally Boeing prides itself on being on- time and will overrun its budget in order to be on time.”

Russian airline S7 said it hasn’t yet heard from Boeing about its Dreamliner orders.

“We’re far from the first customer, so we’re not worried,” spokesman Kirill Alyavdin said. The carrier is due to take delivery of the first of 15 787s in 2014.

Cabin Attendant Pre-requisites:
- Singapore citizen or permanent resident
- At least 1.58m tall
- Pleasant personality with a positive work
attitude
- Minimum 3 GCE ‘O’ level with at least a credit
English
- Effectively bilingual
- Knowledge of Japanese language an advantage

Please download the application form from our website www.sg.jal.com/en or obtain a copy personally from Japan Airlines International Co. Ltd., at our airport Cabin Crew Office, Level 4, Unit 041-16, Passenger Terminal 1, Singapore Changi Airport.

Japan Airlines, Asia’s largest airline by sales, canceled five flights to Bangkok, according to faxed statement from the airline today. Singapore Airlines, the region’s most profitable, has suspended all flights to the city until further notice, the carrier said in a statement yesterday.

The Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports that are gateways to Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy were shut yesterday after anti-government protesters stormed a terminal and blocked roads leading to the airfields. Thailand Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat rebuffed a call to step down and hold early elections after the seizure of Bangkok’s main international airport.

Somchai returned yesterday to the northern city of Chiang Mai from an overseas trip. He said the government will have a cabinet meeting today to decide on measures to restore order.

Thai Airways International Pcl, the country’s largest carrier, suspended all flights from the Don Mueang airport, the carrier said in a statement. Airports of Thailand Pcl shut the facility until 6 p.m. local time today, the carrier said.

The airline yesterday said it loses about 500 million baht ($14 million) in revenue per day from the closure of the Suvarnabhumi airport.

All Nippon Airways Co., Japan’s second-largest airline, will make a decision about its evening flight to Bangkok later today, spokesman Kazuo Yoshioka said in a telephone interview today in Tokyo. Tiger Airways Pte, the budget carrier partly owned by Singapore Airlines Ltd., canceled its flights to the Thai capital for a second day today, according to its Web site.

The protests are headed by the People’s Alliance for Democracy, a group comprised mostly of the Bangkok middle class, royalists and bureaucrats. Alliance members have blocked roads, seized buildings and wielded guns and metal bars with impunity in protests that started May 25.