Subscribe
E-Paper
 |
| Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Hyun-mee. / Yonhap |
By Nam Hyun-woo
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is under fire for not properly handling the Jin Air case, including its negligence that allowed Cho Hyun-min, a foreign national, illegally to take a seat on the airliner's board for six years.
Cho Hyun-min is the younger daughter of Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho. Jin Air is a Hanjin Group subsidiary.
The ministry is also under fire for ending its investigation of the low-cost carrier without directly questioning the former board member, while failing to punish the owner family.
The ministry said Friday it would not cancel Jin Air's license for breaking the Aviation Business Act, which prohibits appointing a foreign national as a board member of a domestic or international air transport services provider.
Cho, an American citizen, was Jin Air's marketing executive and a board member from 2010 to 2016.
In its decision, the ministry said cancelling the license would cost the jobs of Jin Air employees, cause inconvenience to customers and incur losses for minority shareholders, while smaller benefits were expected for revoking the company's license.
However, calls are growing for the ministry to be held responsible for not knowing Cho's board membership was illegal.
From 2010 to 2016, Jin Air renewed its license three times, while the ministry had not done anything regarding Cho's membership.
Regarding its apparent negligence, the ministry said it was "unaware of her board membership" because the ministry made airlines' submission of documents mandatory only in 2016.
The ministry has also been criticized for not noticing two aviation-related acts regarding a foreign national's board membership were contradictory.
When investigating Jin Air, the ministry cited the Aviation Business Act, which bans licensing a company having an executive who is not Korean.
However, the Aviation Safety Act says that when a corporate body is involved, the ministry can give licenses unless more than half the company's board members are foreign nationals.
The ministry is also under fire for the absence of punishment of the Korean Air owner family including Cho, who triggered the Jin Air issue by mistreating employees.
The ministry said "the related act stipulates only revoking the carrier's license, not on fines or other types of punishments" but instead bans the carrier from launching new routes, registering new planes and offering charter flights for "a certain period of time."
"Jin Air submitted plans to prevent a recurrence of such an issue and decided to exclude Hanjin Group officials in Jin Air's operation, and the ministry will ban Jin Air from launching new routes until those plans are fully carried out," a ministry official said.
However, doubts have been raised on the effectiveness of such a measure because it is uncertain if the owner family will take its hands off Jin Air and the company will end up shouldering responsibility for the owner family's misbehavior.
"The ministry has applied paradoxical laws to stir unnecessary controversy while putting the jobs of Jin Air employees at stake," the Jin Air union said in a statement.
"While hiding its negligence in supervising the company, the ministry held employees responsible for the owner family's misbehavior."
