Wow. Talk about a secret shopper.
Heather Cho, a vice-president with Korean Air Lines - and the daughter of airline chairman Cho Yang Ho - ordered one of the carrier's planes back to the gate at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday in a fit over customer service.
The culprit?
Nuts.
According to multiple media reports, Cho was given macadamia nuts as a snack as the plane was boarding and eventually began to pull back from the gate at JFK en route to Seoul, South Korea. The flight attendant did not ask Cho if she wanted the nuts, and they were given to her still in the bag and not served on a plate, as per Korean Air protocol.
Cho then asked to see the chief flight attendant and told him to bring out the procedure manual. When he failed to find the guide, and gave Cho what Korean Air said in a statement were "lies and excuses" to questions she had, Cho had the taxiing stop and ordered the plane returned to the gate - and the chief flight attendant to be removed.
If anybody would know about proper service procedures on the airline, it would be Cho. She is Korean Air's manager for catering and in-flight sales business, cabin service and hotel business divisions. Thus, the airline said in a statement it was perfectly normal and "reasonable' for Cho "to raise a problem in service."
Whether it was legal is a whole other question.
The incident is under investigation, as only the pilot has the authority to return to the gate if there's a problem in the cabin. Korean Air, which apologized to the 250 passengers on board, nonetheless said in a statement that it was not that far from the gate when the incident happened and the flight only arrived 11 minutes late to Seoul.
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