JAL files for bankruptcy: impact on China adoption travel?

This week's widely-anticipated announcement of Japan Airlines' bankruptcy and restructuring does not have much immediate impact for adoption travel:

• JAL services to China have been largely positioned for the local market, shuttling business travelers to the primary Chinese cities (with most of the seats to just Beijing and Shanghai,) plus some short-haul leisure routes to places like Dalian.
• Services out of Guangzhou do not connect to the North American flights leaving Tokyo - whether on JAL or its current oneworld alliance partner American Airlines. Remember, your child's Chinese passport prohibits her from leaving the airport security zone, so an overnight stay in Tokyo on the way home is out of the question. 
• JAL did not offer "adoption fares", and so have priced themselves out of consideration for the short-notice travel that these families require.

There is speculation that after JAL has restructured, the airline may switch alliances and join the SkyTeam grouping. There are several good reasons why this may happen:

• American Airlines does not offer many flights to Tokyo - with its own aircraft, AA serves Los Angeles once daily, New York JFK once daily, Chicago O'hare once daily, and Dallas/Ft. Worth twice daily; and does not directly serve any other Japanese cities.
• The main Asian partner in oneworld is Cathay Pacific, based in Hong Kong, and it basically flies to the same places that JAL flies. There's no need to fly from America, Australia, or Europe to Hong Kong and then connect to Japan when you could just fly straight to Japan.
• SkyTeam offers the broad network of Delta Airlines, flying to 10 US cities from Tokyo. Delta also has rights to fly local traffic from Japan to other Asian countries (a legacy of Northwest Airlines,) which American does not have. 
• SkyTeam also offers nearby Korean Air and its big 24-hour hub operation at Seoul-Incheon. Incheon is easily reached with short-haul aircraft from any Japanese city. This is appealing because Tokyo-Narita airport is short on landing slots and restricted on hours of operation. Plus, if you can schedule an extra trip with your aircraft overnight, that lets you more easily cover your fixed costs.
• Korean Air also serves more cities in China and central Asia than JAL. This would help JAL compete better for corporate travel contracts.
• JAL must also consider how it will compete against the very strong Star Alliance combination of local carrier ANA-All Nippon Airways, plus United Airlines, Continental Airlines, and Air China. United covers many US cities from Tokyo, and has rights to fly local traffic to Asian cities. Continental covers parts of the US that United doesn't, and brings its Pacific Island services to the table - very popular with Japanese leisure travelers. Finally, Air China has a strong hub operation at Beijing, easily reached with short-haul jets from Japan.

American has reportedly offered JAL over $1 billion to stay in the oneworld alliance. Delta, it is rumored, has put a similar number on the table (and its SkyTeam partners may be chipping in as well.) However, the trustees now in charge of JAL's management have said they won't make any new commitments until after they've put their restructuring into place and installed new permanent management. It may be late 2010 before we learn what they decide.

Even if JAL should join SkyTeam, that company would need to be willing to modify its business model to at least give more emphasis to connecting traffic between China / SE Asia and North America.

We will be watching closely, and will update the weninchina.com "Planning Transpacific Flights" page as your options for China travel change.