{"id":27540,"date":"2024-04-26T12:25:39","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T16:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/the-ex-flight-attendant-who-became-the-first-female-boss-of-japan-airlines\/26\/04\/2024\/"},"modified":"2024-04-26T12:25:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-26T16:25:39","slug":"the-ex-flight-attendant-who-became-the-first-female-boss-of-japan-airlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/the-ex-flight-attendant-who-became-the-first-female-boss-of-japan-airlines\/26\/04\/2024\/","title":{"rendered":"The ex-flight attendant who became the first female boss of Japan Airlines"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mitsuko Tottori started her career as a flight attendant [Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

When Mitsuko Tottori was named as the new boss of Japan Airlines<\/a> (JAL) in January, it sent a shockwave across the country’s corporate sector.<\/p>\n

Not only was Ms Tottori the carrier’s first female boss, she had also started her career as a member of cabin crew.<\/p>\n

The headlines ranged from “first woman” and “first former flight attendant” to “unusual” and “no way!”<\/p>\n

One website even described her as “an alien molecule” or “a mutant”, a reference to her having worked at Japan Air System (JAS), a much smaller airline that JAL bought two decades ago.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t know about an alien mutant,” Ms Tottori laughs as she spoke to me from Tokyo.<\/p>\n

In short, she was not from the elite group of businessmen that the carrier had customarily appointed to its top job.<\/p>\n

Out of the last 10 men who held the post, seven were educated at the country’s top university. Ms Tottori is a graduate of a far less prestigious women-only junior college.<\/p>\n

With Ms Tottori’s appointment, JAL has joined the less than 1% of Japan’s top companies led by women.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think of myself as the first woman or the first former flight attendant. I want to act as an individual so I didn’t expect to get this much attention.”<\/p>\n

“But I realise the public or our employees don’t necessarily see me like that,” she adds.<\/p>\n

Her appointment also came just two weeks after JAL’s flight attendants were lauded for the successful evacuation of passengers from a plane that collided with a coast guard aircraft during landing.<\/p>\n

Japan Airlines Flight 516 burst into flames after the collision on the runway at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.<\/p>\n

Five of the six crew on the coastguard plane died and captain was injured. However, within minutes of the collision, all 379 people on board the Airbus A350-900 had safely escaped.<\/p>\n

The rigorous training of the carrier’s flight attendants was suddenly in the spotlight.<\/p>\n

As a former flight attendant herself, Ms Tottori learned the importance of aviation safety first hand.<\/p>\n

Four months after she became a flight attendant in 1985, Japan Airlines was involved in the deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history, which killed 520 people on Mount Osutaka.<\/p>\n

“Every member of staff at JAL is given an opportunity to climb Mount Osutaka and speak to those who remember the accident,” Ms Tottori says.<\/p>\n

“We also exhibit aircraft debris at our safety promotion centre so instead of just reading about it in a book, we look with our own eyes and feel with our own skin to learn about the accident.”<\/p>\n