Japan Airlines should be profitable by the northern fall, under the plans of the chairman appointed to restructure the carrier. The carrier will not drop its international services and become a domestic airline only, says Chairman Kazuo Inamori, despite suggestions along those lines from government officials as the airline slid toward its Jan. 19 bankruptcy. Inamori publicly belittled JAL’s managers, saying at a news conference that he had told them that they were unfit to run a grocery.

Spring Airlines is sticking by plans to become a serious no-frills competitor to China’s lumbering state carriers, despite deferring the share offering that would fund the expansion. Spring says it needs to raise about 20 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) to buy 50 aircraft, half of a fleet of 100 that it plans to operate by 2015. But the initial public offering of shares scheduled for this year will not now happen until next year or even 2012.

Japan Airlines has extended its early retirement program to flight crew, inviting applications from 2,300 pilots over the age of 35. The company is seeking to cut its workforce by 2,700, or about 5% of total employees. To that end, it was already seeking early retirements from non-pilot members of its staff.