TOKYO—An executive from the airline most affected by last
week's grounding ofBoeing Co.'s BA -0.39% 787 Dreamliner jets said the impact on its profits so far is
minimal, and that it shouldn't see a significant dent in its bottom line even
if the halt in flights continues through the end of February.
All Nippon Airways Co. 9202.TO -1.67% already has a contingency plan to deal with the potential
prolonged delay in the resumption of the state-of-the-art jets.
But, "we think the impact isn't so big that we will
need to implement" measures to undertake a fundamental review of route and
fleet strategies, Shinzo Shimizu, an ANA senior vice president, said in an
interview.
These are the first remarks made by an ANA executive on the
company's business outlook since two separate incidents with Boeing's flagship
787 prompted the world-wide grounding of all 50 of the aircraft starting on
Jan. 16.
Still, ANA's route shuffling and customer loss highlight
how some of Boeing's key customers are losing money each day the 787 grounding
continues.
U.S. and Japanese regulators and safety investigators have been
working for more than a week to detect the root causes and to find corrective
action to resume the 787 service. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and
Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau as well as the airlines hope to bring the plane
back in the air as soon as they are convinced the aircraft is safe. But
regulators say they are stumped about the cause of the battery failures.
ANA took the hardest hit among global airlines, as it owns
the largest number of Dreamliner jets, at 17. The Tokyo-based company uses more
787s for its domestic flights than international flights with 60 flights a day,
or 8% of the company's total daily domestic flights. It flies six or eight 787
international flights a day.
A total of 398 domestic flights will be canceled by the end
of the month since Jan. 16, affecting 53,400 passengers because of the halt of
787 operations.
However, Mr. Shimizu said his company won't lose as many
customers as the numbers show. More than half of the passengers have
rescheduled their flights to those before or after the canceled ones for the
same day.
ANA also looks to minimize cancellations to 20-30, a third
to half the 60 daily flights, by taking alternate jets on other services to
787-routes and bringing online planes that are supposed to go on maintenance
but still can fly safely.
"There hasn't been any big impact at the moment,"
Mr. Shimizu said.
The executive in charge of corporate planning stopped short
of how long the carrier can operate before seeing a tangible damage to its
profits with its 787 service kept on the ground.
But, for example, he still expects no big impact even if
the suspension drags on until the end of February.
The final decision on the need of a strategic shift in its
routes and fleet will be made when corrective action is determined to put
Dreamliners back in the air, the executive said.
Once such an action plan is set by regulators, it will be
clear how soon the company will be able to get its fleet back online, he added.
A launch customer encounters a string of teething problems
with new aircraft. But the grounding of all 17 planes was something that the
company had never expected, Mr. Shimizu said.
Still the latest fuss won't change ANA's orders for a total
of 66 Dreamliners by the end of March 2022 and the relationship with the U.S.
aircraft maker, the executive said.
His biggest concern is about customer trust in the
aircraft.
"I have a strong hope that customers understand how
the plane becomes safe again and can fly" with the aircraft again when the
service resumes, Mr. Shimizu said.
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