I am very sorry to see what happening at JAL. Even though I was one of those "Gaijin" crew members that was given the boot recently, I have absolutely no animosity towards JAL. It kept me and my family in the "black" for nearly 15 years and most of the time I had a wonderful time flying with Japanese as well as fellow non-Japanese crew members.
JAL was privatized in 1987. But the state owned mentality remained within the company; that combined with the strong unions that often made some unreasonable demands, this outcome was inevitable.
When I joined JAL in mid nineties, it had already gone through a restructuring process after the bursting of the economic bubble few years earlier. But even then, it was shocking to see how the things were done, especially after coming from another major Asian airline which was always looking at the bottom line. I can only imagine what it was like before the restructuring.
A lot of money was spent on safety related things such as carrying lots of excess fuel for the flimsiest of reasons and keeping aircrafts in excellent shape. You rarely saw a deferred (carry over) defect on 20+ years old 747 classics that I flew.
It also spent millions unnecessarily, such as spending 30000 yen (~300$) each for two taxis for two crew members from the same flight who live on the same street, instead of asking them to share a ride. Senior crew got taxis to and from work at anytime and others between 10 pm – 7 am.
JAL had over 100 subsidiaries in mid 90s, from its Nikko hotel chain down to retail shops, language schools and laundries. Most of them were bleeding money, but used to shuffle incompetent managers around and keep them employed. I think JAL progressively got rid of those companies, way too late.
I wish all my friends at JAL well and sincerely hope it will come out of this crisis as a more efficient airline; and not go the way of other great airlines like PanAm and TWA.
Last edited by Skywards747; 19th Jan 2010 at 23:32.