JAL to cut contract cabin attendant salary

Yet another cost cutting measure from Japan Airlines. In order to lower its fixed cost, JAL plans to reduce its contract workers', mainly cabin attendants', salaries by 3%.

The cut will be effective from April. JAL has around 780 contract cabin attendants right now. If I understand correctly, new hires are first hired as contract cabin attendants and are paid by the number of hours they work. Three years later, JAL will switch them to full-time employees if they performed well.

JAL is negotiating with unions regarding the 5% pay cut of the full-time employees. Not sure how that went but one thing I am sure is JAL is doing the right thing to communicate with the unions! Unlike Cathay Pacific who recently announced changes in their duty swap guidelines to fix some loopholes which affects a lot of hourly paid cabin attendants. What made it worse is CX did not communicate with the unions beforehand. They announced the changes all of a sudden and the changes were going to be effective the next day! As a result, the cabin attendants threatened to strike and CX indefinitely suspend the new guidelines. But the threat isn't over yet. The union has had enough with CX and are demanding more. This shows how poor execution of cost cutting or restructuring measures can turn into! For more information about the CX mess, you can refer to the facebook group started by the CX cabin attendants!

I am glad that JAL is at least giving the employees the respect they deserve!

Source: Nikkei