Japan Airlines Corp. posted a net profit of 12.76 billion yen (US$165.4 million) for its fiscal first quarter on Wednesday, despite a falloff in travel demand in the wake of the March 11 disaster.

The results were an encouraging sign for the rest of the year, and came as the airline, known as JAL, tries to improve cost efficiency and scale down the number of flights as part of a restructuring.

"We're seeing good results. We're going to work hard to exceed the target," said JAL Chairman Kazuo Inamori at a news conference.

JAL posted an operating profit of 17.17 billion yen for the quarter ended June, about 23% of its targeted operating profit of 75.7 billion yen for the fiscal year ending March 2012.

For the year-earlier first quarter, JAL reported an operating profit of around 18 billion yen but didn't disclose the net profit figure. It suffered a net loss of 99 billion yen for the first quarter of the year ended March 2010.

JAL President Masaru Onishi said in May that the decline in travel demand bottomed out in April, but it is still hard to see clearly when the airline's passenger numbers will return to the levels seen before the devastating earthquake that hit Japan in March.

JAL said the number of passengers using its international flight services dropped 42% from a year earlier, while passengers using its domestic services declined 28% from the previous year during the three months through June.

Touching on future risks, Mr. Onishi said Wednesday that travel demand hasn't recovered fully after the earthquake, noting in particular the lower number of overseas travelers from Southeast Asia.

He said he is also monitoring the strength of the yen and fuel prices. Although the stronger yen is positive for JAL when importing fuel, the stronger yen will likely hurt demand among Japanese business travelers.

"We are far from seeing the impact of the earthquake and the nuclear accident subside, and understand that we cannot yet be optimistic about the situation," Mr. Onishi said.

"Our priority is to enhance our corporate value and win back market confidence. We are putting all our energy into changing our profit structure as much as possible and will aim for a relisting in FY 2012," he added.