Daughter of Korean Air chairman resigns after delaying plane over bag of nuts

[KimJongUn]

Daughter of Korean Air chairman resigns after delaying plane over bag of nuts

PUBLISHED : Monday, 08 December, 2014, 10:46pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 09 December, 2014, 7:01pm

Associated Press and Reuters in Seoul

Heather Cho is daughter of Korean Air CEO Cho Yang-ho.

A top executive of Korean Air Lines resigned on Tuesday amid mounting public criticism that she delayed a plane over how she was served macadamia nuts.

Company officials said that Chairman Cho Yang-ho had accepted the resignation of Heather Cho Hyun-ah, his eldest daughter and an executive vice president.

The junior Cho was under public fire following media revelations that a recent Korean Air Lines flight from New York to South Korea returned to the gate because she ordered a senior crew member off the plane.

Heather Cho, 40, was in a first-class seat on a flight bound from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport for Incheon, near Seoul, on Friday when she took issue with a flight attendant who handed her macadamia nuts in a bag and not on a dish, according to local media reports and an industry source.

Cho, a vice president at the airline, summoned the cabin crew chief to ask whether the flight attendant was following the in-flight service manual, said the industry official, who was briefed on the matter but declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

When the crew chief could not answer the question promptly, Cho ordered the crew chief to disembark, prompting the pilot to return the plane to the gate, the industry official said, confirming media reports.

Korean Air confirmed yesterday that the executive involved in the matter was Cho. It said the flight arrived at Incheon 11 minutes behind schedule and the decision to expel the crew chief had been made in consultation with the pilot.

Heather Cho is the oldest daughter of Korean Air Chairman and CEO Cho Yang-ho's three children, all of whom are executives at the airline.

The airline had apologised for inconveniencing passengers. But it also said it was “natural” for Cho to fault crew’s ignorance of procedures

 

[sochi2014]

 

[nufala]

She damn yaya and should be sacked and not allowed to resign.

 

[eErotica69]

Korean Air chief purser in nut row says insulted, forced to kneel

SEOUL: The head of cabin crew who was kicked off a Korean Air Lines flight after a company executive raged over the way she was served macadamia nuts said he was insulted and forced to kneel down to apologise to the executive.

In a case that sparked public outrage and ridicule over her treatment of flight crew, Heather Cho, the daughter of the airline’s chairman and head of in-flight service, reprimanded the cabin crew chief and one of his flight attendants who brought nuts to her and delayed the flight.

“In a situation where she said “Make contacts right now to stop the plane. I won’t let the plane go“, I dared not object to her, the owner’s daughter,” Park Chang-jin, the chief purser, told state-run TV network KBS late on Friday, ending days of silence.

The pilot brought the plane back to its gate at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport for the cabin crew chief to be expelled.

Cho is the eldest daughter of the company chairman Cho Yang-ho. Two siblings are also executives at the airline.

Park said that Cho swore at him, jabbed the back of his hand with a file case several times, and pointed her finger at him while he kneeled.

The incident that was first reported on Monday, has stoked both mirth and anger in South Korea, whose economy is dominated by powerful family-run conglomerates known as chaebol.

Cho has been stripped of all titles at the airline and its affiliates, and faces investigation by the government and prosecutors to determine whether she breached aviation laws.

She bowed and offered a public apology before being questioned at the transport ministry in Seoul on Friday. Speaking to reporters hours after being questioned, Cho declined to respond to the cabin crew chief’s account of the incident.

“I have no idea... I have never heard of it,” Cho told reporters, slightly shaking her head.--REUTERS

http://www.nst.com.my/node/62165