The Koreans are too arrogant to change until they start parking planes. The local Koreans will only go to China because it's easy for them to get home on their days off. Additionally, they will not stray too far from their Asian cuisine. 99% of the Korean pilots only eat Korean food. And Korean food is the most boring around. I love asian food but Korean food only has several types to pick from. Back on point: Koreans will not go to middle east or India or anywhere else. You might get the rare one but they always come back. Korean Air has 38 pilots that will be heading to china by the end of this month. The pay is way more in China. They can make 50-100% more depending upon where they go and actually get days off that they can request. The locals do not have a bid system or request for days off. Only the most senior Korean pilots on each fleet can ask for one special trip each month and that's it. Can't ask for weekends or any specific days off unless they work a deal with their scheduler.
KAL is considering pay raises but how much? Maybe another 1K/mo. Won't keep anybody. All the expats are looking to jump ship. They can't keep any expat F/Os because of their no upgrade policy.
The management's attitude stinks and it's a cultural thing. You aren't go to change them and they aren't going to flex unless something drastic occurs. They can't recruit anyone either and the bottom of the barrel is starting to come to KAL. (low PIC hours or minimal on type with barely any time and so on). They have all these great planes coming in the next 4 years (about 45 more jumbos) What are they going to do since they are flying everyone at max hours and they are now limiting the number of days off you can take. The commuting contract was the best in the industry until a month or two ago. They are now are asking some fleets to take the minimum days of leave and it's going to last for the next 6 months they say. Yeah right. I'm sorry but i'm not taking off only 6 or 7 days in a month to commute home. I left that piece of trash once that hit the fan. i'm in China myself and darn glad.