Japan's ANA on 'wartime' footing to implement COVID reforms

Management decisiveness and fresh thinking by young employees ease crisis impact

An ANA flight attendant stands in the cabin of an A380 in 2019. Japan's biggest airline operator is betting that reforms will see it through the aviation industry crisis brought by the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Masashi Isawa)

MASASHI ISAWA, Nikkei staff writer

January 2, 2021 14:35 JST

TOKYO -- ANA Holdings, Japan's largest airline operator, is making all-out efforts to plow through turbulence triggered by the coronavirus pandemic and fly high again through a new restructuring plan worked out in an unusual manner.

With the global airline industry hit hard by the international health crisis, ANA suffered a year-on-year plunge of more than 90% in the number of passengers carried and anticipates its worst-ever net loss of 510 billion yen ($4.91 billion) in fiscal 2020 through March.