Via a reader tip comes this news that sentence for Heather Cho who was at the center of the Nut Rage case has been announced:
Members of the media try to get pictures of a bus carrying Cho Hyun-ah, the former vice president of Korean Air Line Co., through the windows of the Seoul Western District Court after her trial in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015. A Seoul court on Thursday sentenced Cho to a year in prison for aviation law violations that stemmed from her inflight tantrum over how she was served macadamia nuts.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
An onboard tantrum dubbed “nut rage” culminated Thursday in a one-year prison sentence for Korean Air heiress Cho Hyun-ah, a humiliating rebuke that only partially quelled public outrage at the excesses of South Korea’s business elite.
Cho, the daughter of Korean Air’s chairman, achieved worldwide notoriety after she ordered the chief flight attendant off a Dec. 5 flight, forcing it to return to the gate at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
Head of cabin service at the time of the incident, Cho was angered she had been offered macadamia nuts in a bag instead of on a dish. A heated and physical confrontation with members of the crew in first class ensued.
A Seoul court said Cho, 40, was guilty of forcing a flight to change its route, obstructing the flight’s captain in the performance of his duties, forcing a crew member off a plane and assaulting a crew member. It found her not guilty of interfering with a transport ministry investigation into the incident. Cho pleaded not guilty and prosecutors had called for three years in prison.
Cho, in custody since Dec. 30, wiped away tears with a tissue as a letter expressing her remorse was read to the court by head judge Oh Seong-woo.
It included details about how Cho, one of the richest women in South Korea who regularly flew first class, was adjusting to the basic conditions in prison and reflecting on her life. “I know my faults and I’m very sorry,” Cho said in her letter. [Associated Press]
You can read the rest at the link, but I am surprised she received that much time in prison. Usually you see these business tycoons get rolled into the court in wheelchairs claim they are sick, show their remorse, and then receive suspended sentences. Maybe Cho should have come to court in a wheelchair because by Korean business tycoon standards she got slammed pretty good for what she did. This just goes to show what a nerve she struck with the Korean public that no one in the legal or political circles were willing to stick their necks out to help her. With that all said, with time served and good behavior she will likely be quietly released from prison in a few months.
It appears that Airbus is about to try and enter the Korean defense market:
South Korea’s top carrier airline Korean Air Lines Co. (Korean Air) is poised to participate in a bid for South Korea’s fighter jet development program in association with Europe’s Airbus. Under the development program, code-named KF-X, South Korea will develop and produce about 120 fighter jets to replace its old models.
An informed official told several Korean media outlets, including Segye Ilbo, that Korean Air and Airbus reached a verbal agreement earlier this week to jointly bid for the development project.
The official’s comment was given anonymously, but it immediately brought media attention as the news is expected to open a new chapter for the government’s development plan. So far, Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) has been considered the strongest candidate for winning this project. [The Diplomat]
Here is an interesting article from Bloomberg that explains why the Korean media does not actively investigate chaebol and when major incidents do happen they are quick to forget about them:
Cho Hyun-ah, Korean Air’s vice president responsible for cabin service, and the oldest child of Korean Air chairman Cho Yang-ho, answers question in Incheon, South Korea in September 2014. Yonhap/AP
It’s the rare scandal that links air rage, corruption and the fate of the world’s 14th biggest economy. The Cho Hyun-ah kerfuffle dominating South Korean news media offers all this and perhaps more: a chance to right a political system that’s veered off course.
The news media pounced on the delicious tale of Cho’s freakout, on a Dec. 5 New York-to-Seoul flight, over the manner in which she was served her macadamia nuts. Cho figured her status as daughter of Korean Air’s chairman entitled her to demand that Flight 86 return to the gate to toss off a crew member who didn’t pay her sufficient homage. The 40-year-old has since been indicted for obstructing aviation safety (she’s also being investigated for colluding with transportation officials).
News commentators are now slamming the sense of privilege felt by families running Korea’s corporate giants, or chaebol. Indeed, Cho’s tantrum demonstrated, in a nutshell, how nepotism and clubby ties between government and industry hold back the economy.
But why did it take Cho’s nut-rage to get reporters on the case? Something similar happened last April with the sinking of the Sewol, in which more than 300 people (most of them school kids) died. The ferry was operated by chaebol Chonghaejin Marine, a fact that was harnessed to explore how cronyism and the revolving-door between regulators, bureaucrats and the private sector put lives at risk. This fit a disturbing pattern. When a spectacular incident makes global headlines, journalists feel compelled to investigate Korea’s chaebol problem. When the dust settles, they move on. Rather than respond only to periodic public outrage, journalists should keep a steady watch on the issue.
Two years ago, Park Geun-hye rode a wave of discontent into South Korea’s presidential Blue House. Many blame the widening gap between rich and poor on the dominance of the chaebol, with their unseemly penchant for tax-evasion, sibling battles over assets and extreme concentration of national wealth. Just five companies generate roughly two-thirds of South Korea’s gross domestic product. This outsized influence stifles small-and- medium-size companies. It kills any chance a startup might have to introduce game-changing products and create new jobs. Park’s plan to rein in the chaebol is off to a slow start, and media elites share in the blame.
The chaebol are major advertisers with deep pockets and, like Japan’s vast power industry or America’s military- industrial complex, they are adept at using their brawn to muzzle criticism. In his explosive 2010 book “Think Samsung,” that company’s former in-house counsel Kim Yong-chul detailed how family-owned conglomerates allegedly used bribes and intimidation to “lord over” the government and the media. Kim says that when he first approached local news outlets with the story, he found no takers. [Bloomberg]
You can read the rest at the link, but I think with the rise of alternative media it is getting harder for the chaebol to cover up their transgressions. With that said I would be surprised to see anything change anytime soon.
Via a reader tip comes this news that the daughter of the Chairman of Korean Air decided to have a airplane returned to the gate to boot a stewardess she was unhappy with:
The daughter of Korean Air Lines Co. Chairman Cho Yang Ho ordered a plane back to the gate so she could remove a crew member who gave an incorrect answer to a question on how to serve macadamia nuts, the airline said.
Heather Cho, 40, a vice president of the airline, ordered the head of the service crew on Flight 86 from New York to Seoul to deplane after an attendant earlier had served Cho macadamia nuts without asking, the carrier said. Cho then summoned the purser to ask a question about the airline’s policy on serving nuts. Cho ordered the man to leave the plane when he couldn’t answer. Under the carrier’s rules, passengers must be asked first before serving.
The purser didn’t know the company’s procedures and “kept on making up lies and excuses,” Korean Air said in a separate statement late yesterday.
The aircraft had already left the gate at John F. Kennedy International Airport for takeoff on Dec. 5. It took no more than 2 minutes to return to the gate to deplane the crew member, according to the airline. The flight was 11 minutes late when it arrived in Seoul on Dec. 6.
Korean Air in its statement late yesterday apologized to passengers for the inconvenience the incident caused. It noted the plane was less than 10 meters from the gate at JFK when the decision to return was made. [BusinessWeek]
You can read more at the link, but I can understand her unhappiness because serving nuts for example to a kid without asking could cause an allergic reaction and open the airline to a lawsuit. So I understand where she is coming from, but with that said what gives her the right to turn around a plane? Shouldn’t the pilots due to an emergency be the ones to make that decision? I would not classify this as an emergency and just something that the airline could of took care when the plane arrived back in Korea.
