Japan Airlines has recently announced that it plans on cutting up to 17 of its domestic and international routes. It has also now been noted that these routes could be cut as early as June of next year. On top of these cuts, another two routes will see a big drop in frequency, which does include London.

Japan Airlines will stop half of its 14 weekly flights between Tokyo and London as of December 7^th. At the same time, the Tokyo to Taipei route will also see a decrease from 28 to 21 flights per week. The flights between Tokyo and Hangzhou, Xiamen, and Qingdao will be axed as of December 7^th, as well as the route between Osaka and Hangzhou.

Then starting next January 12^th, the flights from Osaka to Busan and Hanoi will be cut as well. This will happen along with cuts on the Osaka to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur routes on January 17^th. As for domestic routes, flights between Tokyo and Kobe and Nagoya and Kumamoto will be cut along with eight others.

Although this seems like a lot of flights to cut so close together, these cuts were only announced after a year of financial woes for the airline. As of right now Japan Airlines is understood to need a loan of almost €1.34 billion so that it can stay alive, and it will need this loan by the end of the month.

The Japan Airlines’ creditors rebuffed the government’s €4.5 billion rescue plan in October. This plan would have granted the airline up to €2.25 billion in debt waivers or debut for equity swaps. As of now the airline’s main creditor is the state-owned Development Bank of Japan.