Continuous Scandals
Korean Air, the nation's largest airline, has been grappling with a series of unfavorable factors. The airline had been found to have failed to carry out proper maintenance inspections of aircraft before take-off and neglected the management of customers' personal information.
According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) on April 26, Jin Air, which consigned repair and maintenance to Korean Air, recently returned its aircraft to the airport due to its maintenance reasons. In this regard, nine air safety investigators carried out targeting tests for three weeks and found out two cases of regulation violations and 17 cases of correction orders.
In particular, Korean Air was found to operate an aircraft without maintenance according to the manual before takeoff in August last year.
An official from the MOLIT said, “We concluded that it is appropriate to impose fines on the airliner because it is a serious issue.” The ministry also ordered Korean Air to make 17 corrections, such as expansion of maintenance work force and improvement of business process.
Another official from the MOLIT said, “Korean Air’s maintenance lapses were caused by its practice that puts previous experience first before manuals at the maintenance site and its lack of ability to systematically investigate, control and improve problems at the site. In addition, it was partly due to the company’s failure in a sufficient supply of maintenance workforce and equipment in a timely manner.”
According to the result of investigations on privacy laws released by the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs on the 26th, Korean Air has been slapped with a 120 million (US$10,610) fine for receiving passengers’ consent on personal information collection and use without separating consent on use for marketing and advertisement purposes when processing personal information.
As Korean Air, which suffered from “nut rage” incident, has caused controversy over faulty maintenance and neglected customers’ information management this year again, some are raising their voice that the company needs to make a qualitative growth as the nation’s biggest airliner.
An official from the industry said, “Korean Air is facing a series of incidents within and without. The company should improve its internal systems, including safety management of aircrafts and protection of customer information, rather than focusing only on its external expansion, such as introduction of new aircrafts and expansion of routes.”