TOW #13 (Editorial Article) Korean Air princess is a like a despot with her little kingdom

As a Korean Air plane was wheeling down a runway in JFK on December 5th, Korean Air vice president Cho Hyun-ah, also the daughter of the Korean Air CEO, ordered the plane to turn around and return to the airport. If there was a substantial reason for turning around, for example, an old man was having a heart attack or a young lady was about to have baby, there would be controversy surrounding this issue. However, Cho ordered the plane to turn over over the issue of macadamia nuts. It is Korean Air protocol that, in first class, macadamia nuts are served on plates, but the flight attendant served the vice president the nuts in a bag. She threw a tantrum and screamed at the head flight attendant and, ultimately, kicked the head flight attendant off the plane. The Hankyoreh, a website dedicated to editorials concerning Korean news, uses rationale and invective language to argue that the vice president of Korean air was absurd and despotic.

The Hankyoreh uses facts and states how not only was Cho extremely rude and inhumane in her treatment of the flight attendant, but she herself showed, "a shocking degree of arrogance and contempt of aviation law." Even as the vice president of a large company, she showed complete ignorance to her own workers. She also ordered a plane that was in motion to stop, turn around, and return to the airport. This delayed the flight by over 20 minutes and inconvenienced over 400 passengers. Using her authority, she usurped, "the authority of the caption on a whim," and then flew the plane without the head flight attendant which is a violation of aviation law. Although the protocol in Korean Air is that macadamia nuts be served on plates, the Korean Air vice president acted on unsubstantial impulse, and like a dictator, completely disregarded her own people and her own customers for her own selfish reasons, which a bag of macadamia nuts surely don't weigh up to.

Invective language also shows the extremity of the issue and just how selfish Cho was. The Hankyoreh uses phrases such as, "Cho’s behavior is an extreme case of entitlement that pushes the envelope of basic human courtesy," "maybe it’s just too much to expect people with money to act like decent human beings," and "her attempt to drag the captain into the debacle is the same kind of pathetic attempt to pass the buck that we have seen so many times before," giving the sense of Cho being stuck up, indecent, pathetic, and, shortly put, a sore loser. The Hankyoreh doesn't hesitate to criticize Cho which reinforces the absurdity of Cho's actions.

Cho and her beloved macadamia nuts