Cho Yang-ho
Korean Air chief blighted by scandals like the ‘nut rage’ affair
CHO YANG-HO, who has died in Los Angeles aged 70, was the chairman of Korean Air who led the organising committee for the 2018 Winter Olympics at Pyeongchang in
South Korea – but whose reputation was tainted by a series of scandals and embarrassments, including his daughter’s notorious “nut rage” incident on a Korean Air flight.
Shareholders voted to remove Cho from the board of Korean Air Lines just a fortnight before his death, but he retained the title of chairman and had declared his intention to remain involved in management. He was indicted last October on charges of embezzlement and tax evasion – for which he already had form, having been convicted in 2000, with his father and brother, for failing to pay some $53 million of taxes, chiefly on “rebates” received when Korean Air bought Boeing and Airbus aircraft.
In December 2014, Cho’s daughter Heather Cho Hyun-ah, who was Korean Air’s vice president in charge of cabin service, boarded a flight at John F Kennedy Airport in New York and was served macadamia nuts in a bag (in accordance with standard procedure) at her first-class seat. Enraged that the nuts had not been served on a plate, she forced the flight attendant Park Chang-jin to apologise on his knees before ordering the aircraft to return to the boarding gate, where Park was thrown off.
Convicted of violating aviation safety, Ms Cho served three months in prison. But her experience failed to deter either her sister Cho Hyun-min, who last year was investigated for assault after throwing a cup of water in a colleague’s face during a business meeting, or their mother Lee Myung-hee, who was also accused of abusing staff for minor misdemeanours such as driving too slowly.
Cho Yang-ho was born in the port city of Incheon on March 8 1949, one of four sons of Cho Choonghoon, who started business in 1945 with a single truck and prospered by carrying supplies for American forces during the Korean War; his shipping and construction ventures made themselves useful to the Americans again during the Vietnam conflict and became the core of the Hanjin conglomerate (or chaebol) of transport and industrial interests.
Cho senior was a close ally of President Park Chung-hee, the former general who ruled South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979, and was chosen by Park in 1969 to privatise the state-owned airline, which then had just eight aircraft. It grew under Cho family leadership to a fleet of 166 aircraft flying to 43 countries today, as well as a division manufacturing aircraft components.
But in 1999 Cho Choonghoon was forced to step down from the airline, making way for his son, after criticism of its safety record, following a number of crashes over 15 years in which some 800 passengers died, and investigations into the finances of the wider Hanjin group, where Cho Yang-ho also succeeded as chairman.
Cho Yang-ho was a prime mover in South Korea’s successful bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, which saw it beat Munich and Annecy. He went on to chair the organising committee for the Pyeongchang games in 2015-16, but later claimed to have been forced out under pressure from the government of President Park Geun-hye (now in jail for corruption), having rejected a construction bid from a company connected to Park’s associates.
The Cho family’s antics fuelled hostility in South Korea towards dynastic chaebol business groups – and Cho Yang-ho’s recent removal from the Korean Air board was hailed as a step towards better governance.
He is survived by his wife Lee Myung-hee, whom he married in 1973, with their two daughters and their son Cho Won-tae, who remains president of Korean Air.