Across the Sea of Japan, two storied carriers are drawing closer together — not merely as partners in the sky, but as co-investors in each other's futures. Japan Airlines has quietly acquired a stake in Hanjin KAL, the holding company behind Korean Air, at a moment when that company's ownership balance hangs on a margin of less than half a percentage point. The move, announced alongside a sweeping partnership memorandum in Tokyo, suggests that the bonds of commercial aviation are increasingly indistinguishable from the bonds of capital itself.