Due to Airplane Defects
It was pointed out that as plane defects had made Korean airliners to made returns more than 30 times each year, it was urgently needed for Korean airliners to hire more repair and maintenance staffs and for the Korean government to pay more attention to the supervision of them.
Kim Jae-won, a lawmaker of the Liberty Korea Party and a member of the National Land and Transportation Committee at the National Assembly, said that the number of cases in which Korean airplanes returned due to poor maintenance from 2015 to August of this year totaled 93, according to data submitted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. 32 cases were reported in 2015 and 2016, respectively and 29 return cases took place between January and August of this year.
For two and a half years, the total number of Korean airliners’ returns arrived at 647. 552 cases (82%) took place due to inclement weather, followed by 93 cases blamed on airplane defects and 29 cases sparked off by passenger problems.
The airline with the largest number of returns was Asiana Airlines which came back 42 times, followed by Korean Air which recorded 20 return flights. "It is necessary to secure sufficient maintenance personnel and strengthen air traffic control supervision," lawmaker Kim said. "We must ensure that maintenance is thoroughly carried out according to manuals. In addition, the government needs to make sure that there are no loopholes in regulations about compensating passengers for flight delays."