Japan’s two largest business airlines are toughening their stances against travelers who verbally or physically abuse airline staff.
Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways updated their web sites Friday with “customer harassment” policies, within the wake of rising instances of front-line employee abuse occurring across industries in Japan.
Using similarly worded language, the 2 airlines cited nine behaviors that constitute “harassment” under the policies, including:
- Abusive language, aggressive tone, insults, discrimination, slander
- Threatening words or actions
- Excessive or unreasonable demands
- Assault
- Deeds which disrupt business operations (prolonged detention, excessive repetition of requests or complaints)
- Unpermitted entry to workplace
- Deeds which deceive its employees
- Slander against the corporate or its employees on social media and the web
- Sexual harassment
ANA’s customer harassment policy also includes voyeurism, stalking and indecent behavior — a jarring reminder of the situations that airline employees can face in an industry that always sees travelers behaving at their worst. Â
The policies are meant to deal with an absence of clear standards which has made it difficult for workers to handle customer interactions, ANA’s Yoshiko Miyashita, vp of CS promotion, customer experience management told Nikkei Asia.
“This has placed a major burden on our employees, resulting in cases where some have been forced to take leave,” she said.
Japan Airlines’ policy also mandates airline staff to undergo harassment training — employees might be provided manuals detailing the best way to quickly and appropriately reply to “malicious” behavior.
“We have now also established aftercare support for our staff’s physical and mental health,” in keeping with the airline.
Each airlines’ policies state that travelers who harass employers might be issued a warning, after which consequences can include denial of boarding and police involvement. Â
Et tu, Japan?
In america, air rage incidents skyrocketed from around 10 times monthly before the pandemic to around 500 monthly in 2021 — the vast majority of which involved face mask compliance, in keeping with the Federal Aviation Administration.
Incidents have precipitously dropped since then, but “recent increases show there stays more work to do,” in keeping with the FAA’s website.
Viral “air rage” incidents have not occurred on Asian airlines at the identical rate as their Western counterparts, where a continuous stream of inflight meltdowns proceed to happen, albeit over crying babies and in-flight rules to a husband’s wandering eye.
But that does not imply that Asia-based carriers are immune from these passengers either — even in Japan, which has been called probably the most polite country on the earth and one defined by the “4 Ps”: politeness, patience, punctuality and precision.
On June 5, a Japanese passenger caused a 40-minute delay on an Eva Air flight departing from town of Fukuoka after she berated China Airlines’ staff members for not speaking her native language.
In January, an ANA flight returned to Tokyo after an intoxicated passenger bit a flight attendant, in keeping with The Japan Times. The passenger, nevertheless, was reportedly a middle-aged American man.
Amid rising instances of customer harassment in Japan, municipalities and corporations are taking stricter measures to guard their employees.
Some city and prefectural governments are removing employees’ names and photos from their name tags to stop photographs and private information of staff members from being leaked online, in keeping with local media.
