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Court links ex-JAL flight attendant's blood hemorrhage to heavy workload

The Chiba District Court on September 27 ruled that an ex-Japan Airlines purser's subarachnoid hemorrhage was linked to the excessively heavy workload she had to take on and ordered the Chiba Labor Standards Inspection Office to revoke its decision that compensation is not necessary.

The presiding judge completely supported the plaintiff Iwamoto Akiko's claim, stating that the disease is definitely related to her work. He said that the excessive workload extraordinarily aggravated her underlying disease aneurysm to burst and bleed.

This is the first time that a court handed down a judgment in favor of a flight attendant complaining about brain and heart disease.

Iwamoto, who had the attack in Hong Kong in May 1996, still suffers from aftereffects, paralysis on her right side, and speech disorder.

During the six months before the attack, she was on the non-stop flights between Tokyo and New York, which are known for tight work schedules with the big time difference and few sleeping hours.

The ruling accepted all of her complaints that the extraordinary working conditions caused accumulated fatigue resulting in the outbreak of the disease.

Japan Airlines in 1993 removed the upper limits on annual flight hours for cabin attendants, which was 840 hours, making cabin attendants worry that someone may collapse.

Behind the clear court decision that Iwamoto had to continue flying without completely recovering from fatigue, which led to the disease, are opinions submitted to the court by 50 colleagues of Iwamoto's similarly complaining about the special working conditions of flight attendants plagued by accumulating fatigue from shifts for midnight, night-long and early morning flights and jet lag associated with time differences. -- Akahata, September 28, 2005