Korean Air Executive Ejects Crew Member After Poor Nut Service - WSJ

December 8, 2014 4:08 AM
Korean Air Executive Ejects Crew Member After Poor Nut Service
By IN-SOO NAM

The Korean Air Lines Co. logo is displayed at the company’s Skypass mileage program booth at Incheon International Airport in Incheon, South Korea.
Bloomberg News
(UPDATE: Korean Air Executive Resigns After Nutty Flight Delay)

A Korean Air Lines executive flying from New York to Seoul last week on one of the airline’s planes demanded that a crew member get off the jet prior to takeoff after the executive took issue with the way she was served macadamia nuts, a company spokesman said.


Around 250 passengers were aboard Flight KE086, whose takeoff Friday was delayed by about 20 minutes because the plane had to return to the ramp to drop off the crew member, said the spokesman.
Cho Hyun-ah, who is a vice president in charge of Korean Air’s in-flight services and hotel business and a daughter of Chairman Cho Yang-ho, was seated in the plane’s first-class cabin when a flight attendant served her an unopened bag of macadamia nuts, the spokesman said. The problem arose after Ms. Cho said the flight attendant should have first asked her if she wanted the nuts, and then served them on a plate, not in the bag, per Korean Air in-flight service rules, according to the spokesman.
Ms. Cho “scolded” the flight attendant and asked the purser in charge of in-flight administration and supply about the proper procedure for food service in first class, the spokesman said. Unsatisfied with his response, she demanded that he get off the plane, according to the spokesman. The purser flew to Seoul on another Korean Air flight, the spokesman said.
Korean Air issued an apology late Monday, but said it was Ms. Cho’s obligation to inspect cabin service and monitor aircraft safety.
“Korean Air apologizes to its passengers for the inconvenience caused by the return of the aircraft even though the circumstance was not an emergency,” the carrier said in a statement.
It added that the purser had neglected procedure and regulations on inflight services, and so Ms. Cho had called his capability into question.
Neither Ms. Cho, the flight attendant nor the purser could be reached for comment.
“She was just a passenger. It’s unthinkable for a passenger to return a plane to the ramp, which should be decided by the pilot,” said a local airline official.
The incident, which was first reported by local media without identifying sources, was the most searched news topic Monday on Naver, South Korea’s most-used search engine. The Korean Air spokesman declined to say how the news outlets found out about the incident.
Lee Chang-hee, director at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said the agency would investigate the incident.
According to South Korean aviation regulations, a plane preparing for takeoff should return to the ramp only if the pilot determines there is an emergency situation, such as one involving the safety of the aircraft or its passengers. Violators can face up to 10 years in prison.
The ministry director said, however, that an official letter of warning could be issued to Korean Air if the incident was judged inappropriate but not serious enough to warrant punishment.
Update: This post has been updated to include Korean Air’s apology and its explanation for the purser’s removal from the aircraft.

 

Lol, the entitlement of some people is just baffling to me.

"daughter of Korean Air's chairman" oh, makes since. That explains how she got an exec job.


The dumbass resigned though. Wish she was Japanese so she'd have to seppuku haha!
https://news.yahoo.com/korean-air-sa...--finance.html

 

Served the nuts to the nut the wrong way, and then she cracked.....

 

Now you’ve got it, KAL’s version of the “Nutcracker Suite”. Just in time for the holidays.

 

I don't know why the captain complied with her instruction. He was in charge of the aircraft at that point, not her - whatever her position in the company.

 

PIC authority doesn't really exist with foreign airlines.

 

If I were Ms. Cho I don't think I would ever want anyone from KAL touching my food again. Unopened nuts and unopened peachie Oscar would suffice until I got home and the household staff got their shot at poisoning me.

 

If a VP told me to go back, I would. Maybe the VP has a good reason? In this case it all worked out in the end, the guilty got punished.

But refusing such a request from a VP based on PIC authority would certainly be a grey area. A non-pilot manager certainly can't order me to do something unsafe or violate regs, but there's nothing unsafe or illegal about a RTG...and they're the boss when it comes to things like arbitrary termination of employees.

Once airborne, whole different story...they'd need to have a legit operational or safety issue to divert. And if they insisted, they might then become the safety issue.

 

Kneel before Zod!

https://www.yahoo.com/travel/flight-...274149897.html