[Aju News DB]
Highly-paid pilots of South Korea's largest carrier Korean Air Lines voted for a rare strike Friday, but they did not disclose a timetable for their labour action that could seriously undermine the company's efforts to improve profitability.
A proposed walkout was approved by 1,106 out of 1,845 eligible voters. Pilots have voted for weeks, demanding a 37 percent hike in wages instead of a 1.9 percent pay increase proposed by the company.
The vote gives legal ground for the pilots to engage in labor disputes, but South Korea's airline industry is officially designated as critical to the public, making it almost impossible for pilots to stage a full strike. Striking pilots are required to maintain 80 percent of flight operations.
The pilots union said it would gradually step up its action while maintaining negotiations with management, in an effort to minimize damage to the company's flight schedule.
Korean Air pilots staged a four-day walkout in 2005. At that time the company said it suffered an estimated 67 billion won (54 million US dollars) in losses due to canceled flights and other service disruptions.
The pilots are relatively paid well, but they insisted their payment was far smaller than that of foreign airlines which have scouted experienced Korean pilots offering a much thicker pay package.
The union accused the company of failing to improve its corporate governance and poor working conditions. "A tight (flight) schedule and poor working conditions will pose a serious threat to safety," it said in a statement.
The vote comes as Korean Air faces a bumpy ride due to growing competition from rivals in China and the Middle East, as well as budget carriers.
On currency-related gains, Korean Air posted a profit of 92.1 billion won in the fourth quarter of last year, a turnaround from a loss of 272 billion won a year earlier. For the entire year of 2015, however, its net loss widened to 703 billion won from the previous year's loss of 457.8 billion won while sales dropped 3.1 percent year-on to 11.5 trillion won.
아주경제 임장원 기자 = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
