Japan Airlines & ANA Join Forces To Protect Staff From Harassment

The two largest Japanese carriers – Japan Airlines and ANA, have collaborated to formulate guidelines to ensure their staff is protected from the demands and harassment of unruly customers at the workplace.

Employee protection

While the two Japanese carriers – Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways (ANA), are known across the industry for their inflight service and hospitality, the front-line staff of these carriers still face issues that are unfortunately common within the aviation industry today, namely – unruly and unreasonable passengers. To ensure their staff members are protected at the workplace, the two carriers have worked together to create a framework that helps the airline deal with unreasonable demands of the passengers or harassment of their employees.

The Star reports that the framework clearly defines the term harassment and is divided into nine categories covering a range of offenses, such as verbal abuse, physical assault, and sexual harassment. The guidelines further dictate how the employees should deal with passengers making excessive demands and compensation that falls beyond the purview of the airline policy.

Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

The guidelines define harassment as:

“Actions by customers that take advantage of their superior position to commit illegal acts or make unreasonable demands, harming the work environment of employees.”

While the airlines previously did not have a unified policy, by adopting these new guidelines, the airlines will now have a standard set of rules to follow when tackling such situations.

Stats from previous years

Though it is more common to hear about incidents caused by unruly passengers on European or American carriers, such incidents also occur on Japanese carriers. Data from 2023-2024 reveals that both Japan Airlines and ANA each recorded around 300 incidents of customers harassing employees, which indicates the need for such a policy.

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The incident took place three years ago, with the passenger receiving a fine of over $80,000.

Data gathered from a 2022 survey conducted by the Japan Federation of Aviation Industry Unions revealed that over 70% of the union’s flight attendants believed they were photographed or videographed by passengers without their permission, while 37% of the members stated that they faced harassment from customers during the year.

Photo: Carlos Yudica | Shutterstock

Simple Flying has reached out to both carriers to learn more about this policy. Any response received will be updated in this article.

Not just customers

While it is important for carriers to ensure they protect their staff from harassment from airline passengers, it is imperative that the carrier ensures its staff is protected from being harassed by its own members.

A recent incident with British Airways came to light wherein two staff members were found body-shaming their fellow flight attendant on a private WhatsApp group chat. In this instance, the two airline staff members involved were identified and suspended.

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British Airways Suspends 2 Staff Members For Body-Shaming Flight Attendant

The airline maintains a strict zero-tolerance policy against such conducts.

Photo: JEERAPAN JANKAEW | Shutterstock

On a positive note, if the implementation of this policy within Japan Airlines and ANA proves successful, the guidelines created can work as a blueprint for airlines worldwide to adopt and implement similar policies in their workplaces, ensuring protection for their staff members from harmful actions taken by customers and even colleagues.

What do you think of this new policy? Let us know in the comments below!