Three recent Japan Airlines (JAL) flights from Hawaii to Japan were delayed, two by around 18 hours, after a pilot in command was found to have drunk alcohol, the carrier said on Wednesday, the latest in a series of similar scandals to plague the airline.
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The captain was scheduled to fly from Honolulu to Chubu Centrair International Airport in central Japan on Thursday, but called in sick on the day of the flight and admitted to drinking alcohol the day before at a hotel, according to the airline.
JAL found an alternative pilot, but the flight, in addition to two others bound for Haneda Airport in Tokyo, were delayed, affecting about 630 passengers in total.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism visited the airline’s head office in Tokyo to conduct an investigation on Wednesday.
The latest incident comes after JAL was issued a business improvement order in December, following alcohol-related problems involving the carrier’s employees.
In April last year, a JAL captain was warned by local police for disruptive behaviour while drunk at his hotel in the United States. Then, in December, two pilots scheduled to fly from Melbourne, Australia, to Japan failed preflight alcohol tests, delaying the departure of the flight.