Japan Airlines (JAL) has detailed steps it is taking to boost internal safety procedures following a series of operational incidents that led to a highly unusual public reprimand last month from the Japanese government.
Asia's largest airline group says a key measure has been the establishment of a Safety Measures Committee comprising its president, and other senior executives, from flight operations, maintenance, cabin crew, airport operations and cargo departments.
"This will meet regularly and also whenever an irregular situation arises, to share important information related to flight operations and decide on counter measures and also to consider important measures for the whole JAL Group and decide policy," it says.
Three safety officers at vice-president level have been appointed, and an internal safety awareness improvement campaign has been launched. Between now and the end of December JAL will also review procedures and manuals in all departments related to flight operations to determine what changes are necessary to "make procedures and manuals more user friendly and clearer to follow".
A new computer system for aircraft parts monitoring will also be operational this year, it says.
JAL's detailing of the measures being taken to improve operations comes in response to a "business operational improvement order" and administrative warnings made by the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau last month as a result of operational incidents between January and the middle of March. The warning included one for an incident in which JAL failed to report that one of its aircraft began a take-off run without air traffic control approval.
NICHOLAS IONIDES/SINGAPORE
Source: Flight International
