Japan Airlines hikes annual profit forecast to $1.74 bln

Japan Airlines, the once-bankrupt flag carrier that re-listed on Tokyo's bourse this year, on Friday boosted its full-year profit forecast to $1.74 billion. The carrier said it would earn 140 billion yen for the year to March 2013, up 7.7 percent from its earlier projection of a 130 billion yen net profit, but said a simmering trade spat between Tokyo and Beijing weighed on sales. Its full-year sales target was trimmed slightly to 1.21 trillion yen, from 1.22 trillion yen. JAL and rival All Nippon Airways both cancelled thousands of flights in the wake of huge anti-Japan protests in China after Tokyo nationalised a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea. Japan-branded exports to China have suffered as some Chinese consumers boycotted their products, but JAL noted that its other international business was strong in the first half of the year. "Despite flight cancellations and a decline in passenger traffic on JAL's China routes from late-September, traffic demand to Europe and South East Asia on the other hand was high," it said in a statement. JAL said it booked a half-year net profit of 99.7 billion yen, up 2.3 percent on-year, with sales of 634.2 billion yen from 599.8 billion yen a year earlier. In September, the nation's flagship carrier re-listed its shares in Tokyo, three years after it went bankrupt with debts of 2.3 trillion yen in one of Japan's worst-ever corporate failures. The listing followed a share offering that raised around $8.5 billion, the second biggest in the world this year after Facebook's $16 billion initial public offering in May. Embattled JAL had continued flying while it went through a huge overhaul under court protection.