Foreign pilots allege mistreatment by Korean Air during pandemic

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Foreign pilots have accused Korean Air of mistreating them since the pandemic began early last year and forcing them to leave their belongings in South Korea.

A former airline B777 captain, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Korea Herald he has been on unpaid leave for the past 16 months and kept in the dark about his future, while that his Korean colleagues had had the choice to leave. on paid leave.

They forced us, in the truest sense of the word, to sign this agreement on leave without pay, he said.

If they had not signed, they said they would have put (the staff) on leave, he added.

By invoking a force majeure clause, the pilot said, the airline could avoid taking on any social responsibility, including having to offer severance pay after shortening contracts, and the personal effects of foreign pilots were still left behind. stranded in a hotel in Seoul. A force majeure clause allows a company to depart from the terms of a contract due to circumstances beyond its control, such as a natural disaster.

I didn’t like the way they treated me, and indirectly my family, because leaving people with no news, no hope, no financial help or support is really not functional or like the first country in the world like the Korea, the pilot said.

Korean Air has so far managed to generate operating profit amid the coronavirus pandemic – a rare achievement in the aviation industry, which is one of the hardest hit by the pandemic. But with many foreign pilots yet to return to work, the pilot said he felt forgotten.

You cannot declare that you have an amazing financial situation in 2020 and 2021 and forget about the people who produced that kind of income, he said.

Foreign pilots at Korean Air are recruited through a third-party agency on a contractual basis, which means they may be subject to different employment rules than Korean personnel.

Job retention subsidies have helped major Korean airlines survive the pandemic by allowing them to rotate staff. They are, however, intended for people with employment insurance coverage, which is optional for foreign nationals hired by Korean companies.

Another pilot, whose contract was cut short by a few months as the pandemic hit the industry early last year, said he was treated unfairly by the airline.

They treated us like something you can throw away without honoring the contract, he said, adding that the airline terminated their contract due to a force majeure clause.

Although Korean staff received 70% of their salary on paid leave every two months for a period last year, the airline pushed overseas pilots to accept unpaid leave without offering severance pay, the former Korean Air pilot said.

We are all the same. We still have family at home and a contract to honor, said the second pilot.

Korean Air said foreign cargo pilots have now returned to work, but airliner pilots have not, citing the low volume of air travel as the reason.

With foreign pilots to be quarantined for two weeks when they visit their home country or return to Korea, it is difficult for them to be called back to the workplace, a Korean Air representative said in a statement. .

When demand for air travel picks up, we plan to bring foreign pilots back to work, the representative said.

This is not the first time that a Korean carrier has been accused of mistreating its foreign staff.

Last year, a group of foreign pilots alleged discrimination by Asiana Airlines, claiming they were put on unpaid leave for months while their Korean colleagues worked 15 days a month and earned half of their normal monthly salary.

Korean Air and Asiana Airlines made headlines during this pandemic for being among the few airlines in the world to make an operating profit after turning to freight and receiving government subsidies.

By Yim Hyun-su ([email protected])

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