Unions at Japan Airlines Corp. are taking the opportunity of JAL being reprimanded by the government over recent safety shortcomings to fault the policies of management, especially its drastic cost-reduction efforts.
The unions attributed the mishaps in part to management's emphasis on profit and cost cuts they say come at the sacrifice of necessary expenses for safe operations.
Such views, however, have been dismissed by aviation industry officials and experts. Linking safety problems to cost cuts is short-sighted, and it is inevitable for JAL, the nation's largest airline, to bring down its high personnel costs to survive competition, the experts reckoned.