Japan Airlines' latest strategic plan has failed to impress industry analysts, who say the company will continue to struggle until it acts more decisively to cut costs. The airline plans to haul staff numbers down by 8% during the coming three years, to 48,800 from the present 53,100, and it will maintain the reduced salaries that were introduced last year.

Japan Airlines Corp. is tackling a key cause of its unprofitability--its immense fleet of 70 Boeing 747s. Seeking higher yields and lower costs, the airline's 2007 fleet plan accelerates retirements of 747-200s and -300s as more -400s are converted to freighters. Long-haul routes, especially to Europe, are being slimmed down but the carrier, Asia's largest, is building up services closer to home, piling on flights to Asian markets such as China and planning to add more when new runway capacity becomes available in a few years.

China's newly demonstrated ability to destroy satellites in low orbits raises risks for the U.S. and Japan in intervening in any Chinese attempt to take Taiwan under its military control--but that might not be the real motivation for the Jan. 11 test.