[Aju News DB]
South Korea will impose tougher punishments on disruptive air passengers under a revised aviation law prompted by the infamous "nut rage" case involving the daughter of Korean Air's founding family, officials said Monday.
The new law will be effective from Tuesday, calling for a five-year jaIl term, or a fine of 50 million won, on activities threatening the pilot on board, up from a fine of 5 million won, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said.
The fine for drunken passengers who injure other passengers will double to 10 million won, and crew members will be slapped with a fine of 10 million won if they fail to hand over violators to the police after landing, it said.
Disruptive in-flight cases threatening the safety of aviation have been on the rise with some passengers acting under the influence of alcohol, the ministry said in a statement.
"The revised law is expected to help (airlines) cope quickly and effectively with activities threatening the safety of passengers," it said, referring to the "nut rage" scandal involving Cho Hyun-ah, the eldest daughter of Korean Air's chairman, at New York's JFK Airport on December 5 in 2014.
Cho, who was a Korean Air vice president at that time, made international headlines after she ordered a flight attendant off a taxiing plane. She said she had become enraged after a flight attendant served her some nuts in a bag instead of a dish, and insisted the plane return to the gate so he could be removed from the flight.
Her actions invited overseas ridicule and domestic embarrassment. Many South Koreans saw her behaviour as emblematic of a generation of spoilt and arrogant offspring of owners of the giant family-run conglomerates, or "chaebols", that dominate the national economy.
Last year Cho received a one-year jail sentence on conviction of obstructing aviation safety, but an appeals court released her from prison by reducing her sentence to 10 months suspended for two years.
The flight attendant who served the nuts has filed a separate civil lawsuit, alleging Cho attacked, threatened and screamed obscenities and then pressured her to cover up the incident by lying to government regulators.
Following Cho's case, pop singer Kim Jang-hoon was investigated for smoking aboard a home-bound plane, while Korean-American singer Bobby Kim was fined for sexually harassing a cabin crew member under the influence of alcohol.
Charles Lim
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
