The Ugly Korean in Hong Kong's Airport
It appears that one airline had an interesting evening on Sunday:
Cathay Pacific CX 416 was scheduled to leave Hong Kong for Incheon International Airport at 4:20 p.m. on Sunday. The airline delayed the flight twice, first to 5:30 p.m. and then again to 6:00 p.m.
The airline said it made four announcements of the delays, both in the terminal and at boarding gates. But with the airport bustling and the broadcasts made in English and Chinese, some of the Koreans were unable to understand them.
Dozens of Korean passengers protested to Cathay Pacific staff at the boarding gate that the airline had delayed the flight twice but offered no explanation. They also demanded free transport once they arrived in Incheon and compensation for the delay.
The airline promised to provide meal coupons (HK$45), phone cards and transport according to its flight delay regulations. It says it also went beyond regulations in offering US$25 coupons toward in-flight duty-free goods and discount airline tickets during their next trip.
Okay, airline delays happen all the time and the airline offered meal coupons and other incentives for the delay. I have been delayed for up to five hours before and all I got was a meal coupon. So what Cathay Pacific was offering in compensation seems pretty good in comparison to my experiences with flight delays. Anyway this is what some Korean passengers decided to do:
The furious Koreans then started protesting vociferously, screaming and waving their arms. Alone among the 308 passengers, the 44 Koreans refused to board the aircraft. Attempts by the pilot to convince them fell on deaf ears.
They wanted more compensation and refused to board. So this is what the airline decided to do:
The airline then decided to let the flight take off at 7:14 p.m. without the Koreans, explaining it could not delay any longer. At this stage some of the Koreans relented saying the most important thing was to get back to Korea first, and suggested the airline must have had its reasons. When the flight arrived at Incheon at 11:34 p.m., five buses were waiting to take passengers to their regional destinations.
The Koreans that did not board were offered another flight the next day but the airline would not provide lodging and accommodations for them. The Korean passengers are demanding compensation and an officially apology from a high ranking Cathay Pacific official.
Looking at the article I cannot find where the airline was at fault. Delays happen all the time. The article did not say what the delay was for but maybe the plane had a flat tire or something. That is how I got delayed at the Phoenix airport for 5 hours because the plane needed a new tire. I didn’t go berserk, I got a meal coupon got something to eat read the paper and got on the plane when it was ready.
According to the article Cathay Pacific gave the Korean passengers everything they were entitled to for a delay of 1-2 hours. Why would someone demand a hotel room when the delay was not even 2 hours long?
Then should the plane have taken off without all of its passengers? The Korean passengers apparently were given every opportunity to board the plane and they refused. The airline has to think about all of the 308 passengers, not just 44 self absorbed ones. The airline delayed the plane over an hour longer waiting for the Koreans to board before they finally let the plane go.
It was their choice not to board the plane and I think the airline has a responsibility to do what is in the best interest of the majority of the passengers which is the plane should of left. Cathay Pacific shouldn’t feel any obligation to house people that voluntarily don’t board their plane. The passengers should feel lucky the airline gave them another flight the next day.
Make a scene, yell, protest, demand compensation, and an official apology from a high ranking official. Doesn’t this sound familiar? This is a strategy taken straight out of the anti-USFK play book. Now my final question is, how much did this people have to drink before trying to board the plane?
The protesting never ceases to amaze me. I had a flight just flat out canceled in Malaysia. Luckily it was a domestic flight and I was delayed only about 2 and a half hours. Still, all I received was a food voucher. It happens. And President Roh recently referred to nK as the most stubborn nation in the world. Right.
I saw a similar kind of incident in Bangkok a number of years ago…the plane was late and the Korean passengers were making ridiculous demands and yelling and screaming at the Korean air flight attendants. I was just sitting in the corner shaking my head (and frying like an egg in the underairconditioned airport.
I have seen a lot of people delayed in a lot of airporta around the world…I hate to say it…but I have seen and heard of more noisy protests involving Koreans than I care to. The airline is not obligated to give them anything…the fact is that the international aviation languages are English and French….and they were in Hong Kong…the passengers have no right to expect that their language would be used to announce the delay (though the languages of both origin and destination are usually used on flight delays) If you cannot even understand the name of your airline and the number of your flight in English…perhaps you should be more careful….
Airports all over the world make announcements in English becasue it is the lingua franca of the travel industry…I hate to say it…but these people need to learn at least a little English or just stay home….they are embarassing the millions of even tempered Korean travellers.
Ugly is in the eye of the beholder. When the Koreans see their behavior in a mirror — they think its adorable and cute.
Koreans learned to squawk — from fifty years of American paternalism that conditioned Koreans to expect Affirmative Korean Action.
Now, they have become world pests. See what monsters USFK has created?
Stories about Koreans protesting alleged mistreatment by airlines are legion. Attendants from non-Korean airlines will tell you they are the worst (fly Philippine Airlines some time).
I was at Ninoy Aquino one time and an ajumma tried to cut in front of me at the Duty Free checkout line. The Filipino staff expertly handled the proto-linebacker with hardly a bat of an eye. All in a day's work for them.
Watch fuckers like the Marmot blame everyone but the lazy greedy koreans. Koreans are a worthless race. A better story would be if the plane crashed.
Now that is hardly a constructive comment. Racist rants such as this do not lend credibility to you or to your opinions.
Judging by the picture, "ugly" Koreans is not a good choice of words, but that's another story…. 🙂
Just another example of folks expecting their cultural norms to be the same in foreign destinations. Hey, I admit, us Americans do it too. Nothing new there….
It seems that some Koreans tend to act by the rules peculiar to them, which is hard to understand for other nations. It also makes me feel that they easily disregard an international sense of values and rules.
The delay of 1-2 hours gave rise them to yell, protest, demand COMPENSATION and an official APOLOGY from a high ranking official although the airline had made four announcements of the delays…… Sounds familiar?
Shane,
Our Mr. shingles is attempting a propaganda technique called "Jamming".
"Jamming" (a technique to promote emotional dissonance by inserting an incompatible emotional response next to attempts to discern the truth about Koreans. The effect discredits the valid process of discerning critique against Koreans.)
For example over-the-top Christian preachers who rant outrageous hatred towards homosexuals at a Christian rally, are really homosexual agent-provocateurs trying to discredit the valid critique of homosexuality.
Mr. Shingles may be a Korean homosexual agent-provocateur … working undercover for the expat cabal of blogging socialists — self-imagined progressives who secretly cross-dress in Hanbok and … sip wine together in the warm glow of candle-light.
I pray to God … GI is not one of these inverted creatures. But, I do smell the sweet perfume of a Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell soldier who secretly wears a pink Hanbok G-string underneath his Army fatigues.
Please, God … deliver GI from the error of his ways!
"We can't teach that only America is good," said Seema Desai, a tenth-grader who moved from India to Florida in 1993. "That would hurt my feelings."
Seema had joined an impassioned war–led by the local teachers' union–against three Lake County school board members who wanted Florida schools to emphasize America's unique merits.
Seeking to overturn a requirement that would "indoctrinate" students with the intolerable old-paradigm notion that America is best, the union had sued the school board. Such ethnocentric teaching, it argued, emphasizes one culture over another. Therefore it breaks a state law that requires multicultural education.
Do you know that multiculturalism ruled out loyalty to America?
I didn't.
Like most, I believed that multicultural education simply helps students understand other cultures and people. In reality, it trains GI to view the world and its people from a global and pantheistic perspective rather than from a national and Judeo-Christian perspective. In other words, it is designed to speed the paradigm shift–the current transformation toward a radical new way of thinking, believing, and relating to "our global family."
Could GI be a military indoctrinated brain-washed Manchurian candidate? A blogger conditioned to distract us with petty Korean excesses — to avoid the larger incompatibility of fundamental Korean values with American values?
I think he wants us all to come together with mutual understanding for world peace — by simply compromising American values in an emotional group hug.
Any body else catch a whiff of brain-washed socialism from the GI?
Is this everyone's new hobby to psychoanalyze me? I just write about what happens around here good and bad. If I didn't think America was the best country on Earth I sure the heck wouldn't be in the Army. I could be smoking dope with Silly Sally right now instead. I think the alledged global views you claim I have comes from the fact that in the last 5 years I have spent only 8 months total in America. The rest of the time I have been in Korea, Iraq, Kuwait, and Japan. Maybe one day the Army will let me come back home. But these experiences especially the ones I had in Iraq have tended to open my eyes quite a bit.
It would be fascinating for you to write about some of your worldview changes as a result of your extended expatriation.
Would such views hurt your military career?
Koreans are borned having a natural right to protest anything they don't like. We Japanese also see alot of Korean protesting about anything in Japan. That's their sacred right.