Japan Airlines (JAL) is the biggest airline in Asia and has to subsidiaries: Japan Airlines International and Japan Airlines Domestic. JAL's main airports are Narita International Airport and Tokyo International Airport. The airline has some fierce competition from All Nippon Airways (ANA), mostly at Tokyo International. The airline isn't only the biggest in Asia, it also has the most Boeing 747's in the world. They operate a fleet of 63 of these aircraft.

JAL was established in August of 1951. The government did this as a measure to rebuild the country, that was stricken by the heavy bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War Two. Northwest and Transocean helped to start the new business. On the second of February 1954, the airline completed its first international flight. The DC-6B flew from Tokyo to San Francisco, after stopovers in Honolulu and on Wake Island. The JAL-flightnumber on this journey is still '1'. In 1972, JAL became the national airline of Japan. Due to the growing number of destinations, a lot of new planes were bought. Among these new airplanes were Boeing 747's, Boeing 727's and McDonnell Douglas DC-10's. The airline was privatised in 1987. That made it possible for other airlines to compete with JAL. On the first of April 2004, JAL changed its name into Japan Airlines International.

In 1990, JAL helped with the evacuation of Japanese citizens from Iraq, where the Gulf War was about to begin. In 1992 a new department, Japan Air Charter, was registered. Five years later, the airline made a deal with DisneyCountry, which made JAL the official airline of DisneyCountry Tokyo. JAL Express was founded in the same year.