The crisis at Japan Airlines has indirectly introduced a lot of people to the fairly common practice of kabunushi yutai, meaning "privileges for stockholders." The practice seems to be unique to Japanese corporations, which give special treatment to shareholders when there are no dividends to distribute. If the company is a manufacturer, it may actually give away its products or discounts on its products. In the case of JAL, shareholders received coupons that could be used for discounts of up to 50 percent on air fares, tours, hotels and other JAL-related services.

In the past couple of weeks these stockholder coupons have become a hot commodity. Because they are given away to stockholders and, according to the government entity that is overseeing JAL's rehabilitation, coupons "so far issued" will be honored, their sale value has gone up a bit at so-called ticket shops.

Ticket shops are those retail businesses that resell travel tickets, gift coupons, postage, or anything that has a face value. Usually, people who receive such coupons and tickets for free (either as gifts or premiums or even as part of their job) sell them to ticket shops at below their face value, and then the ticket shops resell them at a price just a bit below face value. It's perfectly legal.