By Alex Jensen
SEOUL
South Korean social media feeds were ablaze with nut puns and wounded national pride Tuesday - hours after Korean Air issued an “apology” for the behavior of its chairman’s daughter on a recent flight.
Cho Hyun-ah – the eldest daughter of Cho Yang-ho, the airline’s chairman and chief executive – caused the delay of a New York to Seoul flight when she ordered a flight attendant off the plane in a dispute over pre-flight nuts.
South Korea’s transport authority announced Monday it was launching an investigation to see if aviation safety laws had been broken, the Korea Times reported.
The national flag carrier’s reaction to the furore – in which it insisted there was no safety breach, said the captain had issued the order and that Cho’s actions were “reasonable” – sparked an online response that saw Cho, also known as Heather, branded a “brat” and a “princess” who had “gone nuts.”
One person commented online that Cho was "in the wrong Korea."
Cho is also a senior vice president with the airline and a LinkedIn page under the name Heather Cho shows she joined Korean Air as managing vice president in 1999, her first job after leaving Cornell University in New York. She is also the chief executive officer of the KAL Hotel Network, a hotel affiliate of Korean Air.
Cho Hyun-ah later said she would resign from her post as vice president, the chairman accepting his daughter's resignation.
Last Friday’s incident saw Cho angrily admonish a senior flight attendant in front of other first class passengers for failing to serve macadamia nuts according to company guidelines, which instruct employees to first offer the snack before serving them on a plate.
She reportedly ordered the attendant off the aircraft, which was taxi-ing for take-off. The return to the departure gate delayed the flight, carrying 250 passengers, by 11 minutes.
Korea's press lampooned the row in dozens of comic strips, many highlighting the plight of relatively low-paid service sector workers and playing to Korean suspicions about the attitudes of the offspring of corporate bosses. The online response snowballed into global condemnation.
A South Korean transport ministry official was quoted on Monday by state news agency Yonhap as saying: "Two inspectors are at Korean Air, talking with people. We'll see whether her behavior was against the law. It is an unprecedented case, so we need to see the related regulations.”
The official added: "Even though she is senior vice president at the company, she was a passenger at that time, so she had to behave and be treated as a passenger."
The law says only the flight’s captain can order a return to the terminal and that passengers should not cause a disturbance. Cho was reported to have “screamed” at the flight attendant.
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