Sooo, You Want to Fly for Korean Airlines Do You?
 

Just talking with a fellow aviator who flies for Korean Airlines. He was telling me about an incident which occurred back on December 1, 2011. Seems an expat captain on a B777-300ER from ICN-BKK was assaulted by a Korean engineer in Bangkok.
As the story goes, after landing in Bangkok the captain chose to shutdown an engine during taxi to the gate as the aircraft was rather light weight and was requiring constant braking to maintain a safe taxi speed because of the residual thrust of the GE90 engines. (If you haven't flown this aircraft the GE engines put out a lot of thrust even at idle) Supposedly, KAL like many airlines has advisory pages on each airport (called K-pages, how original). The advisory for BKK "recommends"(not mandatory, not procedure) leaving both engines running taxiing to the gate as there is a slight upslope and to prevent jet blast damage. This is normal if you are flying some of the 777's with the less powerful Pratt & Whitney engines. The aircraft was taxied to the gate and parked with the remaining engine at idle.
After the passengers had disembarked, the engineer came on the aircraft and started yelling at the first officer in Korean. The captain was standing in the cockpit doorway watching this situation going on in first class. Finally, he asked what was going on and the engineer came up to him and started yelling at him in poor, broken English "you violate procedure, you violate Jeppesen, you shutdown engine". The captain told him to get out of his face and stop yelling. Then the engineer, put his hands on the captain and told him to get out of his way. The captain told him to back off and reached for the engineer's ID attached to his pocket. The engineer then shoved the captain and he fell back into the cockpit. In the ensuing struggle, the engineer grabbed the captain from behind and grabbed his left arm and pulled him around. As a result of this, the captain has a shoulder injury and has been unable to return to work for two months. He is undergoing medical treatment. KAL has stopped his pay. As of this posting, no punishment for the engineer. Probably has been promoted and given a pay raise for assaulting a foreigner.
According to my contact, the disrespect toward foreigners by the korean employees continues to escalate. First officers tell captains they don't have to do what they ask them to do because they are foreigners. Cabin crew and Pursers disregard captain's authority. Etc. etc. Meanwhile KAL continues to have incident after incident from ATC violations to nearly running aircraft out of gas, and that is what we know about.
Up until this point the abuse has been mostly verbal. This is a whole new escalation. He told me this attitude permeates Korean Airlines from the top management all the way to the lowest level. The system is totally dysfunctional. You have to need a job awfully bad to put up with this unprofessional garbage. Buyer beware.

What a load of crock!

The arrogant :mad: thought he could bully and push a puny Oriental around. So when the tables were turned, all sorts of baseless and inciendary accusation came about. Typical fork tongue syndrome!

This is just deserts for the sort of riff raffs that seek fortune in the Orient, all the time crying foul to be seen to be on the high lofty road. Human dregs hoisted well above their stations!

By his post I think haejankuk has given us a valuable insight into Korean thinking, whether or not the OP´s story is accurate or not.

I went to Seoul for the whole KAL charade (silly 8 hour medical) and went through the process, got the job offer, but after observing things and meeting a few expats in a bar for quiet discussion, decided to stay away.

That post adds credence to the op's story.

haenjangkuk
 

That is why a expat is required to flights to the USA. With you'r thinking you will never advance.:ugh:

Haenjangkuk has also just had a go at Westerners on the Fragrant Harbour forum.

He seems to like trolling on both Korean and Hong Kong matters. Don't feed him.

Post # 2 more or less confirms something I heard a long time ago... that every national/racial group in this world secretly considers that their national/racial group is superior to every other national/racial group, whereas the Koreans KNOW that theirs is.

I know quite a few people who have worked in Korea (and some who are still working there). I think it would be true to say that very, very few (if any) wax lyrical about the experience.

Their history was so insular and they never had to learn to get along with another people unless you count the Japanese colonisation and post war US bases.

Now their economy and wealth has far outpaced their cultural and emotional ability to get on with other nationalities in stressful situations.

That said they are nice and polite but I'd shy from working for a Korean company since the way people respond to you is determined by status and some haven't worked out where you stand.

No doubt there are happy stories around too

Ouch, ouch, ouch! Haejangkuk, you sure rock; these fellas never learn, always trying to **** around where they eat and sometimes into what they eat too! Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Perhaps the Delta report needs dusting off and a reread???

Perhaps the Delta report needs dusting off and a reread???

I have seen it. It is quite a read. It is pretty thick.

That's ancient history by now and the Deltoids are not in a position to tell anybody else how to run an airline, they went bankrupt and gave up their pensions and pay in 2005. Copilots on cargo airlines make more than Delta captains these days.:eek:

Maybe they will contract KE as consultants on how to make a profit in the flying business.:)

There is some bogus Delta 'report' done by a sacked KE Kiwi on the 'net that floats around with typical wacko expat stuff about how to fasten shoulder harnesses and when to lower the armrests and other wisdom. It is not all bad but certainly wasn't written by a Delta pilot.:=

See: korean airlines internal audit safety report

Korean used to be the FedEx of Asia with their frequent hull losses, it does seem that they have cleaned up their act.

Close friend and former colleague of mine did a stint there, advised against it, and "saw many reasons why the US should vacate the DMZ and leave them to their own devices"...

please provide a source for this rumour

1st hand, 2nd hand, 3rd hand?

news link, etc.

Lots of folks are getting wound up already, canceling trips, turning in their badges etc.

A colleague went to fly for Korean. Already a trainer, when offered line checking, he politely declined. That appointment would have entailed flying with two locals without his hands within reach of the controls.
Personally, I'd only passenger with the outfit if I was desperate to travel.

Loma paseo:

After I heard this story from my buddy, I had him put me in touch with the expat who was assaulted. This guy is a very highly qualified pilot. Prior linecheck experience with a major. 15 years training experience. Talked to the guy for about 30 minutes. You can't make this stuff up.

Airbubba:

The audit I saw is not the one posted by the Kiwi. I don't know where that came from. The one I saw was the original one done by the Delta team.

Oh, no! He didn't follow the K Pagee?

For those of you unfamiliar, any "suggested" is mandatory. The earliest you should do something is when you must do something - if not earlier.

Thou shalt not have grey areas.

For example, if the minimum alt for autopilot engagement is 400', then that means its mandatory, to think you could it later would create a grey area or an option.

That also means that on an approach, if the minimums are 200', you don't look for the runway until you get to 200'. Seriously.

I find this a very interesting thread. I have a friend who was on an MD-11 contract with KAL when he had a serious heart problem in Korea. He was whisked into hospital and received excellent treatment. When he was well enough, he was casevaced back to Europe where he made an excellent recovery.

All bills were taken care of by KAL and they continued to pay him for a whole year after his problem occured.

Things have obviously changed?

JW411,
That's good to hear. When I worked for Cathay they were very good in that respect - unlike a well known Gulf outfit which was in the habit of dumping sick expat employees out of hand.

Do you know if the actual audit document is online somewhere? Was the real Delta audit of Korean publicly released, or, if not, how did you run across it?

The document I linked to seems to be often bandied about as the real deal but some of us can see that it clearly was not written by Delta pilots or even Americans. I believe Alex Paterson may have posted it on his website years ago but it now seems to be removed.

Some of the Ozmate AFAP alums were trying to convince me that these were the actual DL-KE audit findings but observations like "Captain over pattered [sic] the FO so much on the approach, the FO was having difficulty concentrating on the flying." and "Loosening of collar and tie reduces fatigue and should be encouraged." tells me that the author(s) weren't a bunch of good ole boys from Atlanta.:)

And like I said, the Kiwi comments are not all bad, probably authentic but very subjective observations of an individual in response to a request for inputs.

KAL history
 

the history the first audit was by a South African Pilot ( not Kiwi). It was filed for the benefit of the Delta reorganization (2000 I believe) The second diatribe was from a failed ex-Delta pilot who was also fired from Delta for fraud. He certainly had some valid points but was a real pain.

It sure wouldn't be the first (or last) time that a fired pilot suddenly reinvents himself as an 'aviation consultant'.

"I couldn't do my own job without getting canned - pay me to show you how to run your operation!"

Some of the folks who pop up with sound bites on CNN and the like after an aviation incident have very colorful employment histories.

Anyway, the 'Delta Audit of Korean Airlines' has been sighted (and cited) more than Elvis but no one seems to really have a copy after all these years.

I recall that he had no time on the 777 (767 time) and started by telling the Koreans how to fly the aircraft they operated for the last 10 years!

Airbubba,

I think this may be what you are looking for... (not exactly sure)

korean airlines internal audit safety report

It came via B-HKD's post in the Tech Log. There are 43 items mentioned in the body of the report. But note the introduction, there is a caveat...

Oh, you need to download the report, it is in pdf form, from the gray block towards the bottom of the blog.

TD

Just to give the readers some of the time lines of Korean Airline's checkered history. The audit was initiated after the crash of KAL 801 in 1997 in Guam. Lose your life but don't lose face. Much of the progress and change KAL made after Dave Greenberg was there has fallen by the wayside. From some of the incidents that have occurred over there it is a miracle they haven't had another Guam. It must be because of all of that foreign "riff-raff".

What about Asiana? What's it like working for them? Same thing or better?

Yes, I stand corrected. Many of the South Africans obtained NZ and Aussie nationality. When the left SA the future was far some certain. I guess I always considered him South African. G

I met a retired ex-pat captain who flew one of the heavy KAL tri-jets (I think) with a flight engineer. He said that every command given to his Korean FO was refererred back to the older flight engineer, by means of an anxious glance, for the "the nod". Apparently, by tradition the FE had automatic seniority because of his age.

He said the whole time he felt like he had "a saboteur on the flight deck."

And someone else descibed an ex-pat Captain and local FO fighting with opposite yoke inputs on a take off - captain pulling up & FO pushing forward. Eventually smacked the nose down and wrote off the hull. Can anyone verify that caper?

Having worked in Korea for 5 years, I can verify that the Korean culture has direct safety impacts on the flight. Whether you like or dislike the culture is a matter of personal opinion, but it definitely does not belong on a flight deck.

Some of the FO's and Captains I flew with were really nice, but the entire experience I had was one that made me really dislike going to work. The Korean work environment is one of hostility, stress and they constantly worry about everything.

Read the chapter in Malcolm Gladwell's book "The Outliers". He is too kind to them. One expat who flew over there said, "There is a difference between Korean culture and Korean Air culture." He described the Korean Air culture as "dysfunctional".

411A RIP
 

You see, the foreign captain demonstrated poor CRM. That's the root
cause of this and most other problems....

Fly safe,

PantLoad


(I'm joking, of course!)

A friend of mine spent two years there on a 744 command contract. He mentioned there were some 'testing' moments. For example, when he emerged from the bunk on cessation of his scheduled rest to find he was alone on the flight deck! After that incident, he always took his rest in the seat.

Two years was enough for him.

Thanks but I believe that is the same 'audit report' I cited earlier in this thread.

Interesting thread.
Korea is no different than China, Japan or any other Asian country.
If western pilots look for Jobs in Asia is because their options are scarse.
Korean Air is not a bad place to work, one must realize that this is the best commuting contract right now. There are hundreds of pilots applying every month, but the failure rate are fairly high. Korean Air has reputation for being the worse place to work, but other airlines in Asia are worse than Korean Air, Been there Done that, not to mention airlines in Arab countries.
So, If you want to join KAL, rest assured that you will get your days off as planned, your family will be seated in business class with confirmed space (Economy upgrade to Prestige class), and IF you are smart, you’ll remain quiet and do KAL procedures.
Fly Safe.

Zekeigo:

You forgot one other detail. It's OK if a korean employee wants to assault you.

Except that 'KAL procedures' are something we, with difficulty, got rid of in the West. We don't think we are superior; for instance I would not wish to come up against Korean military BUT I do believe that we have, over the past 50 years, developed a safer way of flying civil transport aircraft. That's all.

Rubbish. I did it for the fun and adventure. Worked out well too :)

KAL
 

Yep. I tell guys that are thinking about coming to KAL it's what you make of it. You can be happy or unhappy, it's your choice. Nothing is perfect and that's why I ended up here, looking for something a little better than what I had. KAL is not perfect but it's much better than where I was before. So keep your head down, do the best you can with the procedures, and take your days off as planned.