Japan Airlines pilots and crew sound alarm after spate of safety issues

Ground handling staff and pilots at Japan Airlines Co. have expressed concern about a lack of on-the-job training and difficulties communicating with more senior employees, according to people familiar with the matter, amid a series of safety incidents at the carrier.

During the pandemic, many ground handling staff aged between 30 and 50 left JAL to try their luck elsewhere because they didn’t see an immediate recovery in the airline industry, breaking a connecting string between veterans and younger staff, the people said. Those employees would have normally provided informal training to new recruits and younger people now feel unable to freely ask questions of more senior workers, they added, asking not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly.

A similar dynamic has been playing out in JAL cockpits where sometimes pilots are meeting each other for the first time, the people said. That’s making it more difficult to communicate concerns in a country where seniority-based hierarchy still runs deep, the people said.

A spokesperson for JAL declined to comment. 

The Japanese airline touched upon the lack of skilled manpower at its shareholder meeting last week.

“We failed to build an environment where ground staff could ensure safety amid various pressures and that led to the series of incidents,” said Munekazu Tachibana, the carrier’s senior vice president of corporate safety and security.

While pandemic job losses ran deep across all airlines during Covid, JAL’s safety and operational processes have been under particular scrutiny of late. In January, one of its aircraft collided with a coast guard plane on the runway at Haneda airport. Last month at Fukuoka airport in the country’s southwest, a pilot failed to properly repeat air traffic controller instructions and subsequently moved beyond a stop line, entering the runway without the control tower’s clearance.

In another incident in May, the tips of two JAL planes came into contact at Haneda airport as one was reversing away from the terminal to prepare for take-off while the other was moving forward to enter an adjacent parking spot. Over the weekend, a JAL plane bound for Osaka returned to Aomori airport in the country’s north after a cockpit signal indicated that one of its engines had caught fire.

The incidents come as Japan’s aviation industry, like many around the world, is experiencing a post-Covid boom. Some 3.04 million foreign visitors came to the country in May, up 9.6% from pre-pandemic levels, lured by the weaker yen. The government is aiming to attract around 60 million international tourists annually by 2030.

The transport ministry said in March that JAL is facing a challenge securing sufficient captains as many of them, currently aged in their 50s, are set to retire by around 2030. Most co-pilots at the carrier are in their 20s to early 40s. JAL employs around 2,000 pilots.

A tense environment in the cockpit also isn’t conducive to clear communications, the people said. 

For example, in November last year, a JAL aircraft crossed the runway at Seattle-Tacoma airport without clearance. In a subsequent safety report to the government, the carrier said the captain had misunderstood the air traffic control room’s instructions and even though the co-pilot harbored some doubt, he failed to speak up. 

On Monday, transport ministry officials said that although it’s mandatory for pilots to confirm instructions from the control room with each other, due to the increases in runway encroachment cases, it’s become necessary to check if this practice is actually being conducted.

Japan’s transport ministry also said on Monday that it’s planning to strengthen runway encroachment measures, including installing a sound feature, in addition to a message, that would go off on air traffic control screens if there’s a danger of two aircraft colliding. Runway status lights may also be installed at major Japanese airports to indicate whether jets should proceed or stop.

Furthermore, the ministry is considering increasing the number of air traffic controllers to bolster safety as more flights are added to accommodate the rise in inbound tourism.

Overwork could be another contributing factor.

In April, Japan kicked off work-style reforms that limit overtime for jobs like truck drivers and construction workers. While those regulations extend to air traffic controllers, a lack of staff means in practice, not much has changed.

Air traffic controllers have to take a 10-minute break every two hours but “that hardly happens due to a lack of human resources,” said Hiroki Sato, the vice president of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s labor union.

A software-based system to monitor breaks was introduced for air traffic controllers in 2022, but with no change in the overall number of people working, “effectively, there’s no change in the situation,” Sato said.