Photo: International Media
Tokyo: A former female flight attendant in Japan has been nominated to president of an airline. According to the British publishing agency, the new president of Japan Airlines, Mutsuko Totoki, began her flying career as a flight attendant in 1985, and in 2015 she was appointed as the cabin crew director.
Mutsuko Totoki’s appointment is seen as an extraordinary decision for a major Japanese company and an international airline. She will assume the responsibilities of the president in place of Yuji Akasaka from April 1.
This decision comes a few weeks after a fire broke out on a Japan Airlines plane at Tokyo’s airport, in which 5 people were killed and 379 passengers were saved. Totoki said that she has spent most of her career on the front line of safety and customer services, and hopes that her promotion will give courage to other women to take the next step in their careers.
Totoki said she will work to improve operational safety at the airline. It should be noted that the Japanese government wants to give women a third of the leadership positions in large businesses by 2030 and is pushing for at least one female executive in corporate boardrooms by 2025.
Women accounted for 13.2% of management positions in Japan in 2021, the lowest among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).