Don’t you know who I am? Over Nuts!?

The famous (and sometimes the not so famous) are known for the occasional dummy spit. That moment when they feel like someone clearly does not know who they are. For a purser onboard Korean Air this week, such a moment resulted from a career-limiting move they made onboard a departing flight. And it was all over the way the nuts were served to a passenger, arriving in a packet rather than a bowl. Sadly for them, that passenger happened to be the daughter of the airlines CEO. Some of our members were a bit taken back by the events.

Quite an unbelievable story. I don’t know if this exec is a perfectionist or nut job? Pardon the pun.

Such an act was apparently worthy of the flight departing without the purser in question. And it seems even the captain was in agreement, with the plane returning to the gate for the crew member to leave. That act alone left some of our members wondering about other safety issues.

My first question was the passenger to crew ratio still legal since they were down a crew member?

For other members, it was a sign from the crew that perhaps other things were being overlooked. A case of not getting the simple things right possibly leading to bigger problems later on.

Just to play Devil’s Advocate, maybe she had some point. She is (was) responsible for inflight service in Korean Air, and she suffered a clear breach of service protocol, and then when she chastised them she got a poor response from those that were failing to do their job.

The delay she caused was not reasonable, but maybe if a few more airline executives got on planes and tested the service, some improvements could occur in some airlines.

Initially we only got to judge the facts as presented to us from one side of the story. That side being the often inaccurate or wildly speculative world press corp. There were indications that perhaps the story being told was not entirely accurate. It was not long before another side of the story emerged.

Let us consider what has been reported in a few places as the cabin crew side of the story – that the nuts were actually served by the book (show the passenger the packet, and if they want them, go to the galley, etc), and the purser was defending the more junior cabin crew. The manuals were pulled out to convince the passenger. The ‘crime’ of the purser was to stand up for the junior member, and contradict the passenger in public – at that point it wasn’t about the nuts.

As it turned out, for the daughter of the CEO, the incident turned out to be truly a career-limiting event. She was removed from her post a few days later. Perhaps you have witnessed a similar event on a plane. Or do you believe things were not handled correctly by either side, why not have your say HERE.

Staff Writers