Photo/Illutration Tokyo Metro Chairman Masaru Honda speaks with reporters on March 30. (Sotaro Hata)

A former top bureaucrat at the transport ministry asked Airport Facilities Co. to name another former ministry official as its president, promising government “support” if it did so.

Masaru Honda, 69, who was once administrative vice minister in the ministry, visited the Tokyo offices of Airport Facilities and met with Toshiaki Norita, company president, and Kenya Inada, company chairman, on Dec. 13.

According to several sources and documents obtained by The Asahi Shimbun, Honda asked the two executives to name Katsuhiro Yamaguchi as the next president when personnel decisions are made in June.

Yamaguchi, 63, is now an executive vice president at Airport Facilities, but he also once worked at the transport ministry, serving as head of the East Japan Civil Aviation Bureau.

Honda is now chairman of Tokyo Metro Co., the operator of the subway system in the capital.
Airport Facilities was established in 1970, and seven of its past presidents have been former transport ministry bureaucrats.

But after one project strongly pushed by a past president led to corporate losses, calls arose for a change in management.

In 2021, Norita and Inada took their current posts.

Norita originally worked for Japan Airlines Co., while Inada worked at ANA Holdings Inc.

Japan Airlines and ANA Holdings are major shareholders in Airport Facilities.

When he asked Norita and Inada to name Yamaguchi as the next president, Honda said he was working on behalf of a former administrative vice minister who was his senior.

Honda also said that if Yamaguchi was named president, the transport ministry would provide various forms of support to the company.

But Norita and Inada told Honda that all personnel decisions would have to go through the proper channels since Airport Facilities was a listed company on the stock exchange.

In late March, Honda told The Asahi Shimbun that he held the meeting with the Airport Facilities executives because he had been asked to do so by many individuals.

He added that he only met them for consultations, and said he wanted the company to follow standard procedure in naming a president.

When asked about his pledge to provide ministry support, Honda explained, “I had the feeling of providing support from retired bureaucrats.”

He said he never intended to apply pressure on Airport Facilities by taking advantage of the ministry name.

The company must gain ministry approval for the leasing of state-owned land for its business operations as well as for leasing out cargo and other space at its airport facilities.

A transport ministry official said the ministry was not involved at all and could not comment on the actions of retired bureaucrats.

While a 2007 legal revision prohibits central government ministry bureaucrats from seeking jobs for themselves or other ministry officials, there are no provisions related to retired bureaucrats.

The revision was intended to deal with the practice known as “amakudari” (descent from heaven), in which retired civil servants land cushy jobs at companies or government-affiliated corporations overseen by the ministry where they had worked.

Shinji Hatta, a professor emeritus of corporate accountancy at Aoyama Gakuin University who is knowledgeable about corporate governance, said if anyone who once held a high-ranking ministry position brought up the name of another former senior official during a meeting, the assumption would be that the request was from the entire organization.

(This article was written by Sotaro Hata, Shuhei Shibata and Yoshitaka Ito, a senior staff writer.)

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