business

Vanilla Air to cancel 154 flights due to pilot shortage

10 Comments

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© (c) 2014 AFP

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

10 Comments
Login to comment

There is a western guy who moved into my building recently. I was really surprised to find out that he is actually a pilot for one of these budget airlines. My wife was riding in the elevator with him one day when he had his flight bag and uniform on, he smiled at her and said 'I'm a pilot...!'. (I imagine that must be working wonders for him in Japan).

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Pay more :)

0 ( +1 / -1 )

What is not reported is the reason they left. My brother in law is a JAL pilot and he said that these budget airlines pay far below what the standard airlines do. They also do not have the benefits that the better airlines do. The second they get a chance they leave without notice to one of the big carriers.

My brother in law began with Honshikyu Jet ( a former Japanese low budget carrier meaning Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu) in 1986 and by 1990 had the ability to go with JAL and now flies international between Japan and Australia.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

I heard Qantas was laying off staff left right a center so there maybe an opportunity there for vanilla air to grab some aussie pilots

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I am an airline pilot, and I am used to reading articles like this, but they make me wonder. At my former company, our CEO had said for years that he wanted to phase out our older and smaller aircraft that cost more money to operate. Over several years they are slowly phased out, and nobody notices or says anything because its all part of a logical plan. But then one day he says the remaining 25 aircraft will be parked because he doesn't have enough pilots and then all hell broke loose and it became a major news story. So when I see stories like this it does make me wonder what else has been going on in the background.

One more thing, working at a Low Cost Carrier is generally not so good. Much less pay and benefits in most cases, with much more work. Jetstar does not pay the pilot during training, and they even make the pilot PAY the cost of their training, which can reach $30,000.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

That's two airlines annoucing the shortage of pilots! Totally nuts!! Come on, start raising salaries & hire more international pilots.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

60 have left? It's not like it's a big airline, either. Corporations need to learn that 20 years of cutting the salaries of workers, even as their productivity increases, will have its consequences.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

ANA has always incredible pretexts to cancel flights when they see they are not full enough.

All Nippon Airways (ANA), will cut 154 flights....the cancellations would affect more than 2,500 passengers who have made reservations for the month. ...Passengers will be guaranteed a seat with another airline

That makes about 16 passengers per flight. That's the true reason for cancelation.

60 have left? It's not like it's a big airline, either.

So they were hired to do 2 domestic flights a month at minimum rate ?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Pilot shortages are not limited to just Japan but appears to be a major international problem, even in China and the United States.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

First Peach and now Vanilla air have a shortage of pilots. Both airlines are fully or partially owned by ANA who do not seem to have this problem. I suspect they are doing this deliberately so that they can close down the budget airlines, leaving people with no choice but to pay full fare on ANA.

For a while it looked like there would be some competition in the Japanese domestic air market, but it's gradually reverting back to the two major carriers again.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites