Tokuji Wakasa
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He graduated from the Faculty of Law of Tokyo Imperial University in March 1938 and joined the Ministry of Transport, rising to Director-General of the Maritime Bureau in June 1963 and Vice-Minister of Transport in June 1965. A bureaucrat whose career lay in maritime administration, he has no Civil Aviation Bureau post recorded in the executive listings of the corporate directories. He became a full-time adviser to All Nippon Airways in April 1969, Executive Vice President the following month and President in June 1970.
Selection
In June 1970 he succeeded Tetsuo Oba as President. Oba, too, was an outsider who had moved from head of flight operations at Japan Airlines to Executive Vice President in May 1967 and appears as President in the 1969 directory, so All Nippon Airways brought in its top executive from outside for two successive generations. The same executive listing shows Naoji Watanabe, who took ten years from joining in December 1952 to reach the board, and Norio Shimizu, who joined in the same month and took 13 years. Wakasa went from adviser to President in one year and two months.
Initiatives
In February 1971, the year after he took office, the company opened non-scheduled international flights between Tokyo and Hong Kong; it introduced the Lockheed L-1011 in December 1973 and set up Nihon Kinkyori Airways in March 1974. International scheduled flights were monopolized by Japan Airlines under the 1970/1972 framework, set by a 1970 cabinet understanding and a 1972 directive from the Minister of Transport. Taking the 1974 severance of the Japan-Taiwan route as an opportunity, the company applied for five routes and exchanged a so-called phantom memorandum with Transport Minister Mutsuo Kimura promising future entry, but this collapsed seven months later with the Lockheed scandal. He moved to Chairman in December 1976.
Career
Career
Ministry of Transport
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1965 | Vice-Minister of Transport |
All Nippon Airways
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| May 1969 | Executive Vice President |
| Jun 1970 | President |
| Dec 1976 | Chairman |
| Dec 1976 | Stepped down as President |
| 1991 | Honorary Chairman |
| Jun 1997 | Stepped down as Honorary Chairman |