Japan Airlines has reportedly asked its employees to stop drinking for the rest of 2018 In Japan, Oshogatsu, or the New Year holiday, is a family affair. People travel home for the event, visit a local shrine, and eat foods meant to bring good luck. The drinking and heavy socializing Westerners associate with the holiday come earlier, in the weeks leading up to Jan. 1. For employees of Japan Airlines (JAL), however, this season will be an exception. Read more: The best after Christmas sales you can shop right now The country’s flagship airline is in damage control mode, after a couple of recent scandals involving employees who indulged too much. Now the company has asked employees to refrain from drinking until the end of the year, the Japan Times reports, saying the airline has served only nonalcoholic drinks at company holiday parties. One JAL co-pilot was detained by local police in the UK in October, when in the hour before his long-haul flight was due to depart, he appeared wobbly, with glazed eyes. His blood alcohol level was found to be well above the legal limit for pilots. The man, who had first cheated his pre-boarding alcohol test, was sentenced to 10 months in prison, and eventually fired. Earlier this month, a flight attendant allegedly drank champagne while on duty on a flight between Japan and Hawaii. She has denied the accusation, but, Asahi reports, an empty 170 ml (5.75 oz) champagne bottle was found stashed in a garbage bin on the plane. That bottle had not been served to customers, it was determined. Plus, the crew had noticed the flight attendant making frequent trips to the bathroom. For her mistake, JAL announced on Christmas Day that its president, Yuji Akasaka, would face a one-month 20% pay cut, and the head of cabin crew
on that flight would see 10% taken from her pay. Training and periodic testing would also be stepped up. Read more: Tech investor Peter Pham bought about one gadget every day in 2018. Here are his top picks. It’s possible that JAL is simply the first Japanese airline to suffer consequences for an industry-wide alcohol problem. A recent government survey of airline incidents involving the improper use of alcohol found JAL employees “were involved in 21 of the total of 31 cases in the period from the beginning of 2017 to November this year,” the Japan Times reports. However, the airline also has been first to adopt a highly sensitive new alcohol test, the paper notes. As other airlines upgrade their tests, they too could face a similar crisis. Meanwhile, all 32,000 employees at JAL have apparently been asked to skip the sake this season, an unusually intrusive move for any company to make. (Quartz at Work has contacted JAL for a comment and will update this post with any details.) One employee commenting on the booze ban was accepting, telling the Japan Times that the situation “can’t be helped because we caused trouble.” Read more: CenturyLink is scrambling to address internet and phone outages nationwide Source: https://worldfoxnews.com/2018/12/28/japan-airlines-reportedly-asked-employees-stopdrinking-rest-2018/