Japan's ANA to raise $3.2 billion for post-Covid recovery

In November ANA forecasted its biggest ever-operating loss of $4.8bn (¥505bn yen) for the fiscal year to March 2021.

According to a statement last week, ANA intends to use the money for capital expenditure for medium to long term growth, including buying Boeing 787 aircraft, and for repaying long-term debt.

ANA in February ordered 20 new Dreamliners worth $5 billion at list price, bringing its total orders to 100 planes, according to a report.

ANA will aim for $1.44bn (¥150bn yen) in cost reductions in the current fiscal year and plans to cut about 3,500 jobs in three years. It said that it would reduce the number of new graduates it plans to hire in 2022. It usually employs around 3,000 new graduates and will hire about 200 people for the year from April 2022, according to Japan Times, it has reduced the number of new graduates it will hire in 2021 to 700.

According to a Bloomberg report, an adviser on prime minister Yoshihide Suga’s Growth Strategy Council, said ANA and Japan Airlines would eventually need more support and that they should “become one”.

Michael Lin, a corporate expert at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law, said, "The recovery measure would still depend on when the pandemic in Japan and around the world could suppressed by means of vaccine or strict control and quarantine, and the status of economic recovery in Japan and the world." 

"If the current severe situation lasts for another year, then ANA will be in a more difficult situation regardless of what kind of recovery measure is launched,", he said.