Oct 30 (NHK) - Major Japanese air carrier ANA Holdings has revised downward its earnings projection and says it now expects to post a net loss for two years in a row.
The company announced on Friday that it forecasts a net loss of 100 billion yen, or about 880 million dollars, for the year through March 2022.
The downward revision is attributed to a slow recovery in passenger traffic on international and domestic routes due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The operator of All Nippon Airways had initially forecast a net profit of 31 million dollars.
It posted a record net loss of more than 3.5 billion dollars last business year.
The company also announced a plan to cut about 9,000 jobs across the group units under the ANA brand by March 2026, mainly by curbing the number of new recruits and through normal retirement.
The figure accounts for more than 20 percent of those units.
President and CEO Katanozaka Shinya said at a news conference that the airline business is susceptible to the fallout of an infectious disease and a payroll with many employees makes his company more vulnerable.
He said ANA Holdings aims to get out of what he calls the "COVID tunnel" by workforce reduction.
Source: ANNnewsCH