Drinking Japan Airlines Captain Causes Three Honolulu Flight Delays

Guy puts his paycheck in danger so he can booze it up in his hotel room?

Maybe they don't have a great culture of drinking, but good on them for being honest. I would take a delay due to a captain self reporting any day of the week.

I hope he doesn't face serious repercussions from self-reporting. That's the kind of honesty and transparency that makes the industry so safe to begin with, and if he's forthcoming enough to self-report he's probably also the type to not let it happen again.

And whomst among us hasn't had one to many mai tais at the tiki bar?

"I love the smell of [judgement] in the morning."

I don't think it's honesty and transparency that made the airline industry as safe as it is today

This is Japan we are speaking about. He either self-punishes to atone for his crime or there will be punishment from the company - even if they might phrase it nicely. I see no way he comes away from this clean.

I don't recall any computer being alcoholic.

Pilots and ATC does.

The problem is that his poor judgment cost the company probably tens of thousands of dollars, as I'd imagine JAL had to put most of the 630 inconvenienced passengers up over night, plus pay for meals etc., That also doesn't consider the cost to those passengers of missed work and other expenses of not being home for another day (parking at the airport, pet sitting?). So while yes, we want to encourage pilots to not fly if they are in any way incapacitated, there should be some sort of punishment.

Used to do quite a lot of work trips to Tokyo. Similar story most nights. Local businessman are super quiet and diminutive until about the third drink then the party goes mental!

Just my experience.

Read enough articles like this and I begin to wonder how safe the system really is.

I think we are making the assumption that the captain voluntarily called in sick. I could see a scenario where the other two crewmembers told the captain to call in sick or they would refuse to fly with him.

@Ben
JAL's alcohol policy has been updated after the last few cases. JAL does currently not allow their crews (cabin and cockpit) to drink alcohol on layovers. The case in DFW where the pilot would have been within the rules technically, but causing quite a scene caused a complete ban on alcohol for layovers.

Wow, I wasn't aware of that. No bueno for this pilot then.