International services, and two routes in particular, are mainly responsible for the drop in profit at Qantas Airways, said CEO Alan Joyce. “Los Angeles and London routes were the biggest issue,” said Joyce, explaining the airline’s drastic drop in profit to A$123 million for 12 months to June 30 from A$969 million a year before. When Qantas’ results were issued last week, it was clear that budget offshoot Jetstar and the group’s frequent flyer program had kept the company in the black, offsetting losses in Qantas’ mainline operations.

South Korea will try again on Aug. 25 to launch its first space rocket after identifying a software fault as the source of the problem that caused it to cancel an Aug. 19 attempt eight minutes before its scheduled lift-off. The glitch was in software used in measuring pressure in high-pressure tanks in the KSLV-1 rocket, says Deputy Science and Technology Minister Kim Jung-Hyun (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 20). Data showed the tanks losing pressure, but in fact there was no hardware problem, he says.

Japan Airlines’ Cargo operations and Nippon Cargo Airlines will merge, aiming at overcoming their losses through cost cuts and economies of scale. The Transport Ministry had already urged such a merger, along with a round of other drastic reforms. Japan Airlines is surviving on state money, a situation the ministry is exploiting to intrude into the management of the private company as though it were a government entity.