We will carry out the Medium-Term Business Plan expeditiously by narrowing the gap between management and the front line, thereby speeding up how decisions are made and communicated.

The plan contains three basic threads: restructuring international passenger operations, revamping cost structures, and aggressively developing growth markets. The first, restructuring international passenger operations, involves rebuilding our network and allocating resources to high-growth routes, as well as expanding the model used by JALWAYS, a low-cost airline in the Group where costs are about 10% under JAL's. The second, revamping cost structures, involves five programs including organizing personnel costs more wisely, improving or eliminating low-profit routes, and reviewing administrative processes and reviewing group outsourcing. Each of these includes its own structural reforms. When combined with emergency profitability improvement measures such as reducing employee bonuses, these measures will result in ¥80 billion more in savings in fiscal 2005 than called for by the previous plan. The third thread, aggressively developing growth markets, calls for focusing on China and other Asian markets, where huge growth in demand is forecast for both international passenger traffic and cargo.
  Together, these three approaches constitute a fundamental structural reform to be carried out in our business in fiscal 2005-2007.

Simplification indicates the pursuit of truly lean management of the Group. In fiscal 2006, we will bring the holding company and operational companies together into a single entity, while also reducing the number of directors and thereby speeding up the way decisions are made and communicated. That will improve management responsiveness and efficiency. Simplification is something that we will have to continue to work on in the future as well. We need to reduce the number of aircraft types and configurations, through standardization and averaging out. This also falls under the rubric of simplification. Another point is to simplify processes by using information technology. As we introduce unattended check-in using IC card-enabled systems more widely, for example, there should be efficiencies in airport staffing. All of these lead to cost reductions.