Posts Tagged ‘JAL’

The Future of JAL

According to sources at Japan Airlines, a company wide announcement will be made tomorrow regarding departments that were slated to be dissolved yesterday. Employees in departments likely to be highly affected by the restructuring are also expecting more details regarding their fates to be announced at the same time. While the entire restructuring plan is far from decided, JAL plans to cut 8,600 jobs, around 14% of its workforce. Today, Seiji Maehara, the new DPJ Minister for Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, said bankruptcy is not an option for JAL.

As JAL begins announcing who will go and who will stay, if a healthy chunk of this 14% does not come from the entrenched bureaucracy (which it likely will not), those left behind will be tasked with doing not only the same amount of arguably pointless paperwork, but also their job as well as those of several former coworkers, all why being asked not to request to be paid for overtime. On the other hand, it is not difficult to imagine how a streamlined, efficient airline could navigate the perils of swine flu scares, prodigious pensions, fluctuating fuel prices, and the ever-present threat of terrorism.

Fortunately, Maehara also intends to review the feasibility of JAL’s soon to be released plan. Hopefully under the new DPJ administration, a sustainable plan will be implemented.

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Contributor Bio: Steve has been splitting time between the US and Japan for the past 10 years or so and is now a post doctorate fellow at a large, lumbering University in Tokyo, where he gets paid to play with dirt.

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JAL’s Tsurumaru logo makes its last flight

Japan Airlines has been gradually replacing the crane logo on its planes since a 2002, with yesterday marking the last flight of a plane bearing the logo. Here is a video report from NTV showing the plane landing at Haneda Airport:

Called Tsurumaru, the crane logo was created in 1959.

Before that, the logo consisted of the letters JAL stretched out to form wings. But when the airline moved from prop planes to jets, company officials decided a change was in order.

At first they wanted a logo with a modern design that expressed a sense of speed. However, in the end, a decision was reached to emphasize Japanese qualities.

The crane logo first appeared on a JAL jet in 1960. The first jet, dubbed Fuji, was a DC-8. On that aircraft, the crane symbol was placed on the fuselage slightly behind the cockpit. On the tail was a copy of the Japanese flag.

Many retired JAL employees are sorry to see the symbol go.

Shigeru Yoshida joined JAL when the company was established in 1951. At first, Yoshida, now 82, was posted at Haneda Airport cleaning aircraft and handling luggage.

“I felt a real sense of purpose working to put a plane in the sky at a time when the nation was still reeling from defeat in World War II,” Yoshida said. “I thought the crane logo was a symbol not only for JAL, but for a Japan that was taking off.”

Japan Airlines Guilty Of Price-fixing

JAL has admitted its 6-year involvement in a price-fixing cartel:

Japan Airlines International (JAL) has agreed to plead guilty and pay a 110 million dollar criminal fine for its role in a price-fixing scandal tied to air cargo shipments, the US Justice Department announced Wednesday.

JAL’s admission of criminal wrongdoing comes after the Justice Department reached similar agreements with other carriers last year, including British Airways and Korean Air Lines.

“This price-fixing conspiracy inflicted a heavy toll on American businesses and consumers,” a senior Justice Department antitrust official, Thomas Barnett, said of the JAL settlement.

Asia’s largest carrier confirmed it had agreed to plead guilty in the case in a statement posted on its corporate website. It said it had also cooperated “fully” with the US government probe.

According to the Justice Department, JAL “engaged in a conspiracy” in the United States and other countries to cut out competition by fixing the rates on international shipments of air cargo to and from America and elsewhere.

In other news, ANA, the major Japanese airline that didn’t take part in the above-mentioned price-fixing cartel, has opened a new facility at Narita Airport that will significantly cut down on transfer time between flights.

Japan Airlines Invades Privacy of its Employees

200 employees of Japan Airlines are suing the company after it was discovered that JAL and its union had been secretly creating files full of personal information about 9800 of its employees. The two pictures below show some of the 158 types of data the files contained.

A few examples of entries included in the files:

• “Single Mother”
• “Zainichi Korean”
• “Breast Cancer”
• “Member of Sokka Gakkai Religion”
• “Divorced”
• “Father was a teacher”
• “Stupid”

As one would rightly expect, the employees are demanding monetary compensation from JAL for this outrage.

Update: Japan Times ran an English language story about this in today’s edition. It has a bit more information in it, but few details, since it looks to be a bland translation of reports that didn’t include actual examples of what items were on the list.

JAL In-Flight Catalog Sold Made-In-China “Italian” Wallets

I’d like to know how this happened:

FUKUOKA (Kyodo) Japan Airlines Corp. said Friday it has been selling Hugo Boss-brand wallets and commuter pass holder sets made in China as having been made in Italy on domestic flights since Oct. 1.

The carrier said on its Web site that it designated the products, sold for ¥12,000 each, as made in Italy in its in-flight sales catalog based on information from the manufacturer but later found out through customer complaints that the products were made in China with Italian leather.

Japan’s largest airline apologized to customers and said it will either offer refunds or replace the goods with authentic Italian products.