A Korean Air attendant involved in the so-called “nut rage” incident has claimed that her cabin crew members have attended training sessions to learn how to serve Heather Cho, a former company vice president, on flights, a complaint filed with a court in the United States showed Thursday.
These training sessions were specifically designed to inform crew members of “Cho’s personal preferences” including things like the volume of the welcome music when she boards the plane and the optimal temperature at which to serve her soup, according to the complaint filed with a U.S. court by the female attendant Kim Do-hee.
“Kim understood the power wielded by Cho and her family not only within Korean Air but also the airline industry overall, and given the vitriol with which Cho had attacked her knew that her career as a flight attendant was ruined,” the two U.S.-based law firms representing her, said in a press release.
The law firms, the Weinstein Law Firm PLLC and Kobre & Kim LLP, said on Thursday that they have filed a formal complaint in the civil case pending in New York Supreme Court, Queens County.
Kim served macadamia nuts in a bag instead of on a dish to first class passenger Cho, a daughter of Korean Air chairman Cho Yang-ho, and was verbally and physically abused for not following the in-flight service manual on a Seoul-bound Korean Air flight from New York on Dec. 5. Angered by the service, Cho chided the cabin crew chief Park Chang-jin and ordered the taxiing plane to deplane him.
“We are not in a position to comment on the civil suit in the U.S. as Korean Air’s attorneys are dealing with the matter,” Kim Se-hyuk, a spokesman of Korean Air told The Korea Herald.
By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)
