Japan Airlines from Tokyo: the service philosophy, the training length, what foreign crew find hard, and the calm of a Japanese cabin
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#1 JAL, Tokyo, and I have replied in many threads about the Japanese way and never written it out. So, for the crew who ask what a Japanese carrier is actually like from inside.
The philosophy
Omotenashi is the word everyone uses and it means something specific in the cabin: anticipating what the passenger needs before they ask, and doing it without being noticed. A crew member who is thanked has, in a sense, been too visible. The service is choreographed to the level of which hand holds the tray and the angle of the bow at the door. It is not theatre. It is a set of habits that, done by a whole crew, make a cabin feel calm.
The training
Long, closer to SIA than to Europe: the safety block, then a service block that goes on for weeks, then a grooming and deportment block that is a real module, then consolidation. The bow is taught. The voice is taught. The PA is taught with attention to the honorific levels, which is why Junho's story about the PA with the wrong politeness level matters: the cabin notices.
What foreign crew find hard
The hierarchy, which is real and formal and older than the airline: the purser is addressed formally, the senior crew are deferred to, and a junior crew member's opinion is offered when asked. The perfectionism, which means a service error that a European carrier would not notice is discussed. The language: JAL hires some foreign crew for language routes and their Japanese needs to be very good, and even then the honorific levels are a lifelong study. And the quiet: a Japanese cabin is quiet, the crew are quiet, and crew from louder cultures find the first year silent.
What foreign crew find wonderful
The passengers, who are polite, grateful, tidy, and who thank the crew in a way that makes the perfectionism worth it. The crew, who are kind under the formality. The safety culture, which is absolute. The crew meal, which is good. And the layovers, which are the whole world with a Tokyo base.
The calm
This is the thing I would describe to a European crew member. A full JAL 777 at hour ten is quiet. The passengers are asleep or reading. The crew move without noise. The galley is tidy. It is the opposite of the loud kind cabin that Jay described for Latin America and it is not better, it is different, and the crew who suit it find it restful in a way that a loud cabin never is.
For applicants
Japanese at a very high level, or Japanese citizenship for the main recruitment. A tolerance for hierarchy and a taste for precision. And a real interest in the philosophy, because the training will test whether it is real.
Questions welcome, especially the ones about the bow.
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#2 Japanese, and Kenji has described our cabin exactly, including the part where being thanked means you were too visible. The foreign crew who thrive here are the ones who find the quiet restful. The ones who leave found it silent. Same cabin. Different ears.
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#3 Korean Air, and the Korean version is the same philosophy with a slightly different hierarchy and the same grooming module and the same honorific attention in the PA. The Northeast Asian carriers are one family. Kenji's post applies in Seoul with the bow at a different angle.
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#4 Japanese at a foreign carrier, and I left a Japanese airline for a louder one, and I miss the calm every day and I do not miss the hierarchy at all. Both true. The cabin at hour ten is the thing I miss most.
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#6 United, Tokyo layovers for eight years, and I have flown JAL as a passenger and the calm is real and it is disorienting for an American crew member: nobody is asking for anything. I sat there waiting for a problem for eleven hours. There was no problem.
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#7 Korean Air, and my PA story is now on two threads and I accept my fate. The politeness level matters. The cabin notices. Kenji is right about all of it.