EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms.
“We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said.
The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22 and the cabin crew supervisor allegedly ignored her complaints.
Two days later, she worked on the return flight amid deteriorating health and was hospitalized shortly after the plane arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Sept. 25.
She was later transferred to Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, where she died following several weeks of treatment.
At a news conference, Sun expressed condolences to the flight attendant’s family and apologized for the incident’s impact on them and on the public.
EVA Air “humbly accepts the voices of criticism and correction from society,” he said, adding that the airline is taking steps to compensate the woman’s family, investigating the incident and identifying procedural failings.
The death of the flight attendant was a painful reminder that the airline must review its internal procedures concerning employee health, personnel management and communication mechanisms, Sun said.
The company’s policy on employee health would be reconstructed from scratch to conform to the highest possible standards, he said.
Executive vice president Hsiao Chin-lung (蕭錦隆) said the company expects to conclude its internal investigation within a week, as many of the deceased woman’s colleagues are on international duty.
EVA Air would improve procedures for monitoring employee health before and during flights, including the establishment of a self-reporting system for employees to declare medical concerns, he said.
The airline also plans to revise its protocols to ensure that staff who report feeling unwell are properly heard, and to implement standard operating procedures for handling in-flight medical incidents involving crew members, he added.
Training for supervisors would be improved to address the flaws in decisionmaking and communication that appeared to have played a role in the incident, Hsiao said.
Performance evaluation criteria would also be revised to ensure that employees can take necessary medical or self-care leave without fear of negative career repercussions, he said.
Junior vice president Yang Hsiu-hui (楊秀慧) said the current “priced assignment” system was intended to reward high-performing employees rather than penalize those who need to rest.
Additional reporting by CNA
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