JAL Given Stern Warning over Captain’s Drinking

Jiji Press

16:42 JST, September 10, 2025

Tokyo, Sept. 10 (Jiji Press)—Japan’s transport ministry gave a stern warning to Japan Airlines on Wednesday morning over a scandal involving a captain who drank excessively in Hawaii prior to his duties.

“We deeply apologize,” JAL President Mitsuko Tottori said in a press conference after the airline received the warning. She said the company will not assign flights to pilots who have a high risk of drinking issues.

Around 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Yasuo Ishii, director-general of the Aviation Safety and Security Department of the ministry’s Civil Aviation Bureau, handed a document to Yukio Nakagawa, managing executive officer of JAL, who also serves as chief safety officer, demanding a report on measures to prevent a recurrence by the end of September.

“We recognized personal malice” in the case, said the ministry official. “We cannot say that JAL’s internal management and supervision were adequate.”

According to JAL, the 64-year-old captain who was assigned to pilot a flight to Chubu Centrair International Airport in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, from Honolulu on Aug. 28 drank three 568-milliliter bottles of beer with 9.5 pct alcohol on the previous day.

From the morning of Aug. 28, he voluntarily underwent alcohol detection tests many times but continued to register levels of alcohol, prompting him to report his drinking to the company. The incident resulted in delays of up to 18 and a half hours for three flights.

After the drinking issues of two other JAL captains came to light in December last year, the airline banned its pilots from drinking at lodging facilities. The ministry issued a business improvement recommendation to JAL over these issues.

Still, the captain in the latest case repeatedly consumed alcohol at his lodgings. He was also found to have tampered with the dates and times of voluntary alcohol tests he had undergone.