There is a Connection between the “Nut Rage” Incident at Korean Airlines and the AirAsia Crash

The “nut rage” incident at Korea Airlines exposed once again the feudal leadership culture there. This was supposed to have been eradicated with the training given by Delta Airlines many years ago to eliminate the dysfunctional culture in the aircraft cockpit which had led to several crashes by KAL planes.

Clearly this culture is still alive and well in KAL. The fact that the aircraft captain actually obeyed Heather Cho, the EVP of cabin services and the chairman’s daughter, by taking the aircraft back to the departure gates to dump the head steward, underlines the extent to which this culture is alive and kicking. Unfortunately it probably means that the safety issues that this culture can lead to have not gone away.

In other words, probably the cultural issues which were associated with the crashes by KAL planes still exist. That means that KAL could yet have another crash due to these causes. The Korean authorities are right to throw the book at KAL but this problem is far from gone. What about other Korean airlines such as Asiana?

It’s still far too early to say what caused the AirAsia crash. Chances are that it was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe those pitot tubes had something to do with it.

But there’s another clue we need to look at there. That is, that the plane did not have permission from the Indonesian government to fly at all on that Sunday morning. It only has permission to fly this route 4 days a week and that day was not one of them.

Now if the airline could flout the rule about when it could fly, what other rules has it flouted? Are there safety rules that it didn’t think were important that is also flouted? Did its charismatic founder and CEO, Tony Fernandes, feel that he was above the law? Did the Indonesian government and its airline authorities, many parts of which are notoriously corrupt, turn a blind eye to AirAsia’ s oversight because of behind-the-scenes dealings?.

It’s become clear that the Asian airlines still have a safety record which is no way near as good as those of the Western airlines. The nut rage incident shows that you still can’t rely on KAL. But even worse it shows that you can’t rely on the Korean authorities either. Now the AirAsia incident has thrown unexpected light on AirAsia’s level of compliance with government regulations.

The overwhelming chances are that these problems of organizational culture and compliance with government regulations are still posing a safety issue at many of the Asian airlines, and not just in South-East Asia either. Of course we all knew that flying on the airlines of developing countries wasn’t as safe an on the Western airlines. But the nut rage incident and even the AirAsia crash reveal in their own ways the persistence of this gap.

Air travelers on the airlines of the developing countries, beware.