FRANCE 98 – General Media News Template
It was the first major contingent of Japanese fans to head for France in time for the opening of world sport’s biggest event on Wednesday, airline officials said.
Japan Airlines Co. Ltd. and All Nippon Airways Co. Ltd., the nation’s two largest carriers, plan to send a total of 40 extra flights bound for Paris this week, the officials said.
Most seats on the flights have already been reserved, the officials said.
Travel agency officials said many participants in the World Cup tour had taken special holidays, with June not a traditional vacation month in Japan, despite the risk of losing their jobs. “The World Cup is more important than my job,” a businessman said at Narita Airport, near Tokyo, before his departure. Even unemployment holds no fear for diehard fans keen to watch their country take part in the World Cup for the first time ever.
Shigeki Sakurai, a 31-year-old resident of Shizuoka, southwest of Tokyo, quit his import car sales company after nine years in the job, stunning his boss, the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported. “I cannot miss the historic moment of Japan making its debut on the World Cup stage,” he was quoted as saying. Thirty-five thousand Japanese fans are flying to France to support the national team, more than double the number who went to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, according to the Japan Travel Bureau. Japan are in Group H with Argentina, Croatia and Jamaica. They kick off against Argentina in Toulouse on Sunday.