Seoul: Korean Air said it would let its crew use stun guns more aggressively and put more male staff aboard flights to clamp down on violent passengers, after an incident involving an unruly passenger.
South Korea’s flag carrier said it was tightening security after 1980s US pop singer Richard Marx lashed out at the company on social media for its handling of the incident.
Until now, the use of stun guns or tasers has been limited to situations where there was an “imminent threat to the lives of passengers and crew or to safe navigation”, said airline spokesman Nathan Cho.
But “regulations on the use of stun guns or tasers will be changed to allow crew members to use them more aggressively”, he added.
The airline will also put at least one male crew member on every flight, purchase new ropes to tie down unruly passengers quickly and step up crew training in mock-up cabins.
Korean Air’s 700 male attendants account for only one tenth of its flight attendants.
Marx said last week he had to step in to help “clueless and ill-trained” crew restrain a violent passenger on a flight from Hanoi to Seoul’s Incheon Airport.
Local television footage showed a male passenger flailing, punching and spitting as female crew members and other passengers struggled to hold him down and tie him to his seat with a rope.
South Korean police sought an arrest warrant for the passenger, identified as a 34-year-old heir to a South Korean cosmetics company. — AFP
