Air China's - Orient Aviation

COVER STORYA year after Japan Airlines (JAL)received an embarrassing publicdressing down from authoritiesabout safety lapses, the effectson that criticism of its businesscontinue to linger. Now it hasdecided to invest US$1 billion tore-emerge as an airline companywith high safety standards and aquality product.JAL investingbig in safetyWhen a special ExternalSafety AdvisoryGroup, formed to lookat what was goingwrong with JapanAirlines (JAL) safety systems, presented itsrecommendations to the airline’s managementin late December, the findings madefor alarming reading. JAL, they said,was suffering “big company syndrome”,a rigidly structured business with littleunity between management and front lineworkers who all felt the workplace hadbecome a stagnant environment.It was important for JALto find a way to revitalizeitself as a company that makessafety its overwhelmingpriority, said the experts. Theywent further and proposed theairline set up a centre whereemployees could learn frompast errors and increase theirawareness of accidents anddaily mishaps.The centre, they suggested, should displaysymbolic parts of the JALB747 that crashed at Mount Osutaka onAugust 12, 1985, with the loss of 520 lives,and it should include “victims’ personaleffects collected by bereaved families.Half of JAL’s employees had joinedthe company after the accident and sucha display would keep the accident alive inemployees’ memories, they suggested.JAL has decided to implement nearly allof the advisory group’s recommendations,including a safety promotion centre with adisplay that will feature the rear pressurebulkhead – the rupture caused the accident– and the cockpit voice recorder from the1985 crash. There will also be a series ofillustrated panels describing other previousaccidents and incidents.Making these reminders openly accessibleto all staff – public groups andindividuals will also be able to arrange40 ORIENT AVIATION MAY 2006visits – reflects how serious JAL is taking thetask of winning back its safety reputation. Itwas a task begun last year, immediately afterthe airline was rebuked by the Japan CivilAviation Bureau (JCAB) for safety lapses.“After receiving the advisory group’srecommendations, we found that some ofthem were already being implemented asa result of our own initiatives, which welaunched in April 2005,” said ShinobuKobayashi, director corporate safety for theJAL Group.One example was the need to raiseemployee safety awareness. “We alreadyDC-10 fleet was retired six months ahead of time last Octoberhad such a programme in place. From April2005 we started direct talks between frontline people such as mechanics, cockpit andcabin crew and our chief executive and othertop executives, under the general heading ofemergency safety meetings,” he said.“By the end of the year we had logged357 of these meetings. They were held atworkplaces all over our network, in Japanand overseas.”These meetings are continuing. “This is areally tough job and we received a great dealof comment and criticism. It is certainly noovernight task. But we believe this can lead tothe creation of a better safety culture and thepromotion of employee safety awareness,”said Kobayashi.Among the criticisms was a need for fleetrenewal. There were too many different typesof aircraft and configurations. The decisionwas taken to advance the retirement ofthe DC-10 fleet to October 2005 from lastMarch.It was also decided to bring forward theretirement of the B747 Classic fleet by threeyears, to 2009, instead of 2012.Front-line staff also complained thatramp incidents appeared to be on the rise andground service equipment was getting old.A fact-finding survey of all ground serviceequipment, including a review of renewalplans, is now underway.Another criticism was that safetymanuals are complicated and there is alack of unification betweenthem. Staff want electronicmanuals that are easy to useand print out.Kobayashi said manualreview groups were establishedin each division tolook at all manuals relatingto safety. These reviews werecompleted in December andJAL is now in the process ofanalysing the findings.JAL still has some way togo. As recently as March thetransport ministry ordered the grounding ofan MD-87 jet that had gone unchecked for 10days past an inspection deadline. The airlinewas reprimanded for not checking its maingear according to its inspection schedule.One day later, after a new inspectionhad been carried out, ministry officialsquestioned maintenance crew and discoveredproper procedures had still not beenfollowed.In a statement JAL said the plane hadflown 41 times over the 10 days after themaintenance deadline.In April, Japan’s House of Representativestransport committee summoned the presidentand CEO-designate of JAL and of smalloperator, Skymark Airlines, to testify onmaintenance errors found recently at bothairlines. Like JAL, Skymark recently operatedan aircraft past a repair deadline.