Fair warning to all those planning to travel via Korean Air Lines: be on your best behavior and do not cause trouble or harm to your fellow passengers, because if you do, the airline crew will not hesitate to use stun gun on you.
The airline has announced that it will introduce a new policy allowing the crew to readily use stun guns against unruly and potentially violent passengers on its flights. It will also employ more male flight attendants and ensure there's always at least one male flight attendant onboard for each flight. American singer Richard Marx may be " partially responsible" for these changes after complaining online how the airline crew handled a recent ugly incident.
Marx on a flight from Hanoi, Vietnam to Incheon, South Korea helped subdue a passenger who got drunk from taking more shots of whiskey than he is capable of consuming, and turned violent and started attacking crew members and other passengers. Marx later shared on his Facebook and Twitter accounts his disappointment for the way the airline crew managed the situation describing the flight attendants as " ill-trained and ill-equipped" to handle the " chaotic and dangerous event."
Marx's wife, TV host and model Daisy Fuentes, who was with the singer on the flight also took to Instagram to score the crew for their inability at that time to secure the rope around the unruly passenger, allowing the troublemaker to get loose from the rope restraints three times.
When the South Korean police later served an arrest warrant for the passenger only identified by his surname Lim on various charges including inflicting injury to the crew and passenger, the culprit apologized for his behavior, but said he could not remember what transpired on the flight.
Korean Air Lines' new guidelines also include more staff training including on such practical emergency matters as how to properly use the latest device to "tie up" a violent passenger, and the banning of passengers with history of unruly behavior. The air line also found it imperative to add more men in their crew as to date only 1/10 men occupy jobs as flight attendants.
Korean Air President Chi Chang-hoon has said that the Dec. 20 incident will compel them to put safety foremost on their agenda and strengthen their safety standards. He admitted that Asian carriers espousing Asian values did not follow the more stern rules and policies of U.S. carriers following the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
Korean Air Lines' introduction of new policies may be timely because aside from last week's incident on the same flight of musician Marx, government data show that the number of unlawful acts committed aboard airplanes have more than tripled over the past five years in South Korea.
In the U.S. last week, a man harassed Ivanka Trump on a commercial flight and was asked to deplane.
