Tokai Kisen said on October 2 that the Kanto District Transport Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism ordered it to stop using three vessels for 20 days, from October 9 to October 28. The order, dated October 2, is based on the Marine Transport Act.
The order covers a subset of the fleet, not the whole company. The company's notice names the three vessels in Japanese only. It does not say which routes they serve.
How it got here
The bureau began on-site inspections of the company and its ships under the Marine Transport Act and the Seamen Act in January 2026. The company says they confirmed a navigational watch kept under the influence of alcohol, and false entries in alcohol-test records and pre-departure inspection records. Both breached its own safety management rules and the pre-departure inspection provisions of the Seamen Act.
On August 28 the bureau had already ordered the company to remove its safety management chief and its operations manager, and issued a transport-safety order and a corrective order under the Seamen Act. The company says it then set up a special investigation committee of outside experts and filed an improvement plan with its corrective report.
Service and earnings
Tokai Kisen apologised to islanders and other users for the disruption during the suspension. It says it will work with group companies to secure as much transport capacity as possible, but gives no detail on replacement vessels or timetables.
On earnings, the company says it is still assessing the effect on the group and will disclose promptly if anything material arises. It gives no loss estimate.