Out of Japan Airlines‘ 216,478 flights, 90.95% of them were less than 15 minutes late or on-time.  Another Japanese airline, ANA, comes in second, with 130,852 flights in 2009 where 90.37% were less than 15 minutes late. Here’s the rest of the airlines from the top 10, according to Forbes.com.

3. SAS (Sweden) – 158,572 flights in 2009, 89.11% on-time or less than 15 minutes late
4. Korean Air Lines (Korea) – 133,662 flights, 88.61% on-time or less than 15 minutes late
5. Horizon Air (USA) – 142,094 flights, 85.88% on-time
6. Air Nostrum (Spain) – 119,549 flights, 85.80% on-time
7. Chautauqua Airlines (USA, regional carrier for major American airlines) – 171,026 flights, 84.60% on-time
8. Qantas (Australia) – 153,816 flights, 83.90% on-time
9. Lufthansa (Germany) – 386,205 flights, 83.21% on-time
10. British European, formerly known as Jersey European (U.K.) – 128,360 flights, 82.64% on-time

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.

JAL said last week it would ask for aid from a state-backed turnaround fund. It could receive a large injection of public money from the fund if it can secure the backing of creditors and come up with a viable restructuring plan.

These proposals have triggered strong opposition from retirees and employees, who under current laws can easily block any cuts to their benefits if just one third of them vote against.

To get around this, the government is considering legislation that would allow JAL to cut payouts, but implementation would be tricky as it could be interpreted as violating a constitutional protection of personal property rights.

A bankruptcy would likely cause more pain for creditors, which include the state-owned Development Bank of Japan and the country’s top three private banks. The task force has estimated creditors could recover just 2-3 percent of their loans in bankruptcy, as opposed to 20-30 percent if the restructuring were out of court.

Five years after retiring from Japan Airlines, former pilot Tsutomu Watanabe is fighting to protect the pension he was promised but that the airline can no longer afford to pay.

My pension contract is settled and I have my certificate, said the 65-year old Watanabe.

A website set up by Watanabe and other JAL retirees shows that more than 40 percent of 9,000 people receiving and in line to receive benefits have signed an online petition against pension cuts, which puts them above the one-third threshold.

Most of the job cuts will take place at Japan Airlines International Co., which operates all JAL flights, according to Kyodo News.

The additional job cuts (4,000 more than it was announced) will involve the sale of equity stakes in JAL Hotels Co. and consolidating subsidiaries from abroad of the JALPAK Co. travel agency.

JAL also made a formal request to banks to write off or convert their $2.7 billion in loans into equity, as a plan to return profitability to the company. The plan for the restructuring is to be released at the end of the month.