South Korea: 'nut rage' airline executive jailed for a year

A former executive at South Korea's national airline, Korean Air, has been jailed for a year for forcing a plane she was travelling on to turn back because she was served macadamia nuts in a packet rather than on a plate.

Heather Cho, also known as Cho Hyun-ah, was on a flight from New York's JFK Airport to Seoul on 5 December last year. The plane was taxiing on the runway when Cho was served the nuts, says the BBC.

Witnesses said Cho became enraged and struck a member of the cabin crew with a service manual because the nuts were served to her without her having asked for them and because they were not served on a plate.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Cho, who is the daughter of Korean Air's chairman, then forced the crew to turn the plane round and take it back to the gate and offload the chief steward before flying to Seoul. Crew said she treated them "like slaves" and acted like "a beast".

After the incident came to public notice, Cho resigned her position as vice-president at the airline and apologised. But Judge Oh Sung-woo said this morning that she had not shown enough remorse.

Oh told her: "This is a case where human dignity was trampled upon." He said she had treated the jet "as if it was her own private plane" and added: "It is doubtful that the way the nuts were served was so wrong."

Cho had faced a maximum sentence of ten years for violating aviation law, though prosecutors had only asked that she serve three years. She has now been jailed for one year. It is not known if she will appeal.

Reuters reports that the court also convicted another executive at the airline of trying to interfere in the government investigation into the case and sentenced him to eight months in prison.