December 17, 2014--This Is Nuts

The daughter of the chairman of Korean Air Lines recently forced a plane she was on to go back to the gate so she could have the head steward kicked off because she had been served macadamia nuts in their bag instead of on a plate. This according to the reliable New York Times.

I say "reliable" since if this story had appeared in, say, the New York Post I would have thought it preposterous, made up. Who in their right mind would do such a thing? But there you have it--Cho Hyun-ah is unlikely to have much of a mind.

This, though, is not the whole story.

While waiting for the plane to get back to the gate, Ms. Cho forced the steward to kneel before her and apologize for the way one of the cabin  crew in first class had served the nuts. There was no word about how the peanuts were served in coach.

After the incident, the steward went public which is unusual in class-bound South Korea. Not only did he tell about the kneeling but also alleged that while he was on his knees, Ms. Cho hit him repeatedly with a folder of papers before tossing them at the junior steward.

As the story spread it added to the roiling resentment in Korea toward the families who own the county's sprawling conglomerates. It appears they have their own Occupy-Wall-Street going on.

The patriarch of the Cho family, Hyun-ah's father, so concerned about the implications for his widespread business interests not only kicked his daughter off the Korean Airlines board but also stripped her of her other nepotistic no-show jobs and forced her to apologize. Not on her knees of course.

In the meantime, as fallout from the nuts incident, sales of macadamia nuts in Korean are surging to the point that merchants can't keep them on the shelves. Everyone, it seems, wants a taste of first class. Even if in bags.