All Nippon Airways' 787 grounding mitigated by very low domestic load factors and utilisation

Every cloud has a silver lining, and All Nippon Airways' remedy to the current 787 grounding could make it a more efficient airline in the long-term. Domestic Japanese load factors are typically woefully low - 60.9% in the year to 31-Mar-2013 for ANA, Japan's largest carrier and Asia's largest airline by revenue.

ANA is the world's largest 787 operator, with a third of the global in-service fleet. Much attention has consequently been directed towards it. But the impact from the 787 grounding is disproportionately lower as ample slack in ANA's schedules allows for re-shuffling. That is however not a simple task.

An expected rise in load factors for the duration of the grounding could give ANA a taste for greater efficiency, which it could then use to leverage against JAL's lower cost base.