All About the JAL Group - CSR Report 2007

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In performing ongoing reviews of safety-management systems and planning further safety improvements, the JAL Group receives assessments and recommendations from a variety of external organizations.

IOSA

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) is a global audit program with rigorous safety standards that assesses safety-management systems among member airlines. Following audits carried out in December 2004, JAL underwent an updated audit of 744 items in eight operational areas (organizational systems, flight, operational management, maintenance, passenger cabin, airport and ground handling, cargo and security) in October 2006 and passed on all items.

IOSA accreditation

IOSA audit at maintenance headquarters

Government Assessment

Established in October 2006, Transport Safety Management Assessments are carried out by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to assess the status of safety-management systems among all transport operators. Areas that require improvement are identified and advice is offered. JAL underwent inspection in November 2006 and received the following evaluation:

• Top management is positively engaged in activities that prioritize safety, including dialogue between management and employees and the establishment of the Corporate Safety Division with a director appointed as general manager.
• Safety information is reported in a timely and appropriate manner by employees to management.
• The Safety Promotion Center is actively used.
• Preliminary accident and incident systems are in place.
• Work-site opinions are reflected in business planning.

We also received the following advice:

• Confirm to what extent safety-policy measures have been achieved.
• Establish greater communication between upper and mid-level management.
• Create a mechanism for confirming whether safety training is being adequately carried out.
• Conduct internal audits of top management and the safety-control managers of each division.

Safety Advisory Group Recommendations

The JAL Group established a five-person Safety Advisory Group, under the chairmanship of well-known writer Kunio Yanagida, tasked with creating a corporate culture with a higher level of safety. On December 26, 2005, the Safety Advisory Group presented the company with a set of proposals that ran to 125 pages. Listed below is JAL’s response to the advisory group’s recommendations. The JAL Group reports to the Safety Advisory Group on a twice-yearly basis regarding activities and the status of the progress made on the proposals received, and in turn it receives comments from an expert perspective.

Safety Advisory Group Members

Kunio Yanagida (chairman)
Nonfiction writer (specialty: accident and disaster crisis management)
Yotaro Hatamura
Professor, Kogakuin University; professor emeritus, Tokyo University (specialties: creative engineering, failure studies)
Shin’ichi Kamata
Professor, National Defense Academy (specialty: organizational theory)
Shigeru Haga
Professor, Rikkyo University (specialty: transport psychology)
Akinori Komatsubara
Professor, Waseda University (specialty: human life engineering)

1. Central Organization Responsible for Safety
On April 1, 2006, the JAL Group established the Corporate Safety Division and appointed full-time staff with extensive knowledge and experience of safety-related tasks. These staff report directly to the division’s general manager.

2. Learning from Accidents
The company opened the Safety Promotion Center on April 24, 2006, with the major goal of improving safety awareness among JAL Group staff through educational activities with an emphasis on learning from past safety incidents.

3. Accident Case Studies
Since December 2006, the company has displayed wreckage at the Narita and Haneda Maintenance centers to accompany the information presented in accident case studies and help prevent the recurrence of such incidents.

4. Sharing Safety Data
In cases where a safety incident occurs at a specific division, the relevant facts and measures to prevent recurrence are shared among other divisions and the group.

5. Preventing Human Error
In April 2006, the company distributed a collection of case studies of unequivocal verbal communication to some 40,000 group staff and followed this up by distributing English copies to approximately 4,000 non-Japanese crew members and overseas staff.

	Unequivocal Verbal Communication
By ensuring that both parties in a routine business conversation understand the message each is trying to convey, unequivocal verbal communication helps prevent human error.

6. Cultivating a Culture of Safety
The company has implemented group-wide educational activities related to staff adopting a “second-to-third-person perspective” when dealing with customers. Education concerning human error has also been conducted for heads of organizations directly related to safety.

The Second-to-Third-Person Perspective

If you are a passenger experiencing the operations of an airline, you adopt a first-person perspective. Where a family member is the passenger, this becomes the second-person perspective. Airline staff carrying out their duties without properly considering the position of the passenger constitutes a third-person perspective. JAL staff have to adopt an empathic position that combines personal and family perspectives with the need to make detached, professional (third-person) judgments. This we term the “second-to-third-person perspective.”

7. Links with Administrative Authorities
In fiscal 2006, the company hosted a series of sessions for JAL staff and air-traffic controllers to meet and engage in informal talks. In all, 46 sessions were held — approximately four times as many as in fiscal 2005. The company also invited the air-traffic controllers to tour company facilities and experience flight simulators in an attempt to promote a mutual understanding with regard to operational safety.

8. Spontaneous Thinking and Action
Middle-Management Meeting
Since February 2006, middle-management staff from departments throughout the company have gotten together for a general meeting once a month for a free exchange of ideas, transcending company and work-site affiliations, about matters relating to the JAL Group.

Unification Project
Thanks to the efforts of these middle-management staff, communication channels among departments and divisions have expanded and improved since September 2006.

Bottom-up Management
To promote the filing of improvement proposals and other spontaneous activities from field divisions, the company has created a system for interdepartmental problem solving.

Personnel Exchanges
Since April 2006, junior staff with approximately three to six years’ experience have participated in joint training sessions to provide an understanding of the content of one another’s work and how their responsibilities fit in with those of the overall group so as to boost a sense of teamwork.

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