Japan Airlines, Asia’s biggest airline, will file for bankruptcy protection today, shortly after Tokyo’s Stock Exchanges closing time.

Japan Airlines currently has debts estimated from $16 to $22 billion. The officials intend to cut over 15,700 jobs (about 30% of the staff) by March 2013, to close some routes and to introduce smaller aircraft on marginal routes.

The speculations about JAL’s trials have been very intense in the last months. Although some representatives of the Japanese Government say that the airline could recover in two years, although the analysts say that this seems like a very optimistic goal.

Japan Airlines stock price collapsed in the last days, losing more than 90 percent of its value. This morning, the shares of the company were trading at just $0,04 per share, a record low. JAL’s market value is now just $120 million, below the price of just one new Boeing 787 jet.

Once the proud of the country, Japan Airlines was set up in 1951 with a several leased aircraft and it grew into a corporate giant with almost 50,000 staff and a fleet of 280 planes. JAL continued to refuse to cut the costs and the investments ever since the first signs of Japan’s economic bubble collapse, in the early 1990s.