Rumor: JAL panel switches to plan B (or should I say plan X)?

Seems none of those proposed Japan Airlines restructuring plan actually satisfies everyone. The latest JAL restructuring plan once again fail to please every one (this time the creditors), and the expert panel has to switch to yet another plan.

First JAL's own plan failed, then there were endless rumors/ideas thrown out and last week looks like the expert panel finally submitted a draft to the Transport Minister Seiji Maehara. According to Maehara, the plan has been smooth and he is confident that they will find a solution. But only a few days later, Nikkei (via Bloomberg translation) reports a rumor saying Japan’s Ministry of Finance and the Development Bank of Japan call the plan UNWORKABLE. Nikkei (via Bloomberg again) also reports the three largest banks (JAL creditors) also rejected the proposal due to its lack of robust business strategy...

I thought those 5 members selected by Maehara is supposed to be experts and how come their plan can be a lack of robust business strategy? Isn't this worse than the previous panel who came up with a too optimistic plan?

According to Reuters, their new plan this time is to use public fund to buy a majority stake in JAL which would allow the government to have a greater control over JAL daily operations. Yes this is what they have come up with after 3 months of endless proposal and rumors (ok to be fair 2 months spent by the old panel, 1 by this new one). I am speechless...

The funds will come from The Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation of Japan (ETIC), which opened on Friday and will run for 5 years. It has up to 1.6 trillion yen public funding in the current fiscal year. That's a lot of money that they can spend in 6 months. For more details on ETIC, Reuturs has a Q&A page on this.

I hope this will be finally be the plan that would work. I hate seeing yet another round of rumors...