Carrying the Rising Sun — The Growth of Japan Airlines

On February 2, 1954, a single passenger plane lifted off from Haneda and turned its nose toward the Pacific. Its destination: San Francisco, by way of Honolulu. It was postwar Japan’s first scheduled international flight. The one-way fare was, for people of the time, an unthinkable sum. Even so, the fact that the nation’s own wings touched down at a foreign airport announced that, just nine years after defeat, Japan was beginning to reconnect with the world. Japan Airlines, restarted as a semi-public, semi-private national flag carrier, advances from here into an age of glory. Yet that advance was always back-to-back with the heavy mission of representing the nation.

Crossing the Pacific

The Pacific route opened by the first postwar international flight held a symbolic meaning for Japan Airlines. Until then, Japanese people heading abroad had no choice but to rely on foreign wings; now, at last, a way opened to go out into the world aboard their own company’s aircraft. A national flag carrier refers to wings that fly the sky on behalf of the nation. To land at a foreign airport with the Rising Sun painted on the fuselage was nothing less than to face the world bearing the country’s face.

That said, the international routes of the day were not something anyone could board with ease. Fares were beyond the reach of ordinary people, and it was an era when overseas travel itself was strictly restricted. The airplane was a special vehicle that only a limited few could board. Even so, Japan Airlines gradually extended its routes from Honolulu and San Francisco, spreading its wings toward Europe and Southeast Asia. As Japan’s economy regained its strength, the map of its air routes, too, spread out across the map of the world.

To take charge of international routes was also to negotiate with foreign airlines and the governments of other nations. The airports served and the number of flights were governed by agreements between countries, and standards of safety and hospitality were tied directly to a nation’s reputation. The national flag carrier was a position that, alongside glory, carried a tension in which failure was never permitted. That the bearing of Japan Airlines’ cabin crew and the hospitality aboard were often spoken of as the image of Japan itself tells of the weight this company carried.

The Jumbo Opens the Age of Mass Transport

Indispensable in telling of Japan Airlines’ growth is the evolution of the aircraft. As airliners shifted from propellers to jets, the time to cross the Pacific shrank greatly, and air travel drew much closer to being something familiar. Speed changed the sense of distance, and the world came to feel far smaller than before.

The greatest turning point of all was the introduction of the Boeing 747, the so-called jumbo jet. Sounded out for adoption by Boeing around 1965, this enormous airliner increased the number of seats—previously fewer than two hundred—all at once, and could carry many passengers at a time. Japan Airlines, after careful deliberation, committed to its adoption, and in 1970 the jumbo jet entered service on the route linking Tokyo and Honolulu. It was just the period when passenger numbers were growing greatly through the liberalization of overseas travel and rapid economic growth, and the jumbo became the lead player supporting the age of mass transport.

The arrival of the jumbo changed the very character of air travel. When the number of people carried at once rises, the cost per seat falls, and room eventually opens up in fares as well. The airplane, once a special vehicle for a limited few, was opening up to more and more people—and at the entrance to that great current stood the jumbo jet. The path by which airplanes would in time become a vehicle of the masses began with the dawn of this age of mass transport.

Protected Wings, and Then Privatization

Even as it piled up glory, Japan Airlines kept carrying one piece of unfinished business: the mechanism of its semi-public, semi-private birth. The deep involvement of the state became the foundation supporting enormous funds and international trust. But at the same time, routes and fares could not be separated from national policy, and managerial judgment had little room for freedom. Being protected was, turned the other way, being bound.

As the times advanced, the world’s aviation industry saw a strengthening current of removing state protection and pitting companies against one another in competition. In Japan too, voices grew that, considering efficiency and the interest of users, the mechanism of generous state support ought to be reviewed. And in November 1987, the Japan Airlines Company Act was repealed, and Japan Airlines steered toward full privatization. It was the moment a line was drawn under the semi-public, semi-private era that had continued since its founding.

Privatization was the gaining of freedom and, at the same time, the letting go of a backer. Wings that had until now been protected by the state must henceforth stand against the winds of competition by their own strength. The pride of the national flag carrier remained as it was, but the responsibility of management shifted heavily onto the company itself—a change that would greatly shape what came after for Japan Airlines. The wings that had raced through the age of glory now headed toward new skies of trial.

And so Japan Airlines, from the first postwar international route to the jumbo jet and on to full privatization, achieved its growth while bearing glory and mission. Yet Japan’s skies did not belong to this single company alone. Chasing the back of the national flag carrier was a challenger setting out from an entirely different starting point. The story of that company, which began with the small first step of helicopter transport and would in time climb to become one of two giants, waits next.