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Product cover image for Korean Air: The Nut Rage Incident

Korean Air: The Nut Rage Incident

Thompson S.H. Teo; Mei Jie Zhao

Product #:9B15D017_P
Supplier:Ivey/NUS
Discipline:International Business, Operations Management
Setting:South Korea, 2014
Details:Case (PDF) • 10 pages • 2015-11-30 (Rev: 2015-11-27)

Subjects:

Customer serviceLeadershipPublic relationsCustomer experienceLeadership and managing peopleCorporate communicationsBusiness managementInternational businessOperations and supply chain management

Industries:

Transportation and distribution

Geography:

South KoreaAsia
Your Price:$9.71

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In December 2014, after receiving poor service on a flight, a senior vice president at Korean Air lashed out at the flight attendants and delayed the flight’s departure until the chief attendant was returned to the gate. Following a tepid apology from her father, Korean Air’s chief executive officer, her actions drew a public backlash because they exposed the sense of entitlement prevalent among rich family conglomerates in South Korea. How should she have reacted in the face of the service failure? Why had she become the target of a public backlash? What could Korean Air do to mitigate the negative effects of this incident?

Learning Objectives

This case examines what managers should do in the face of service failures, and what firms should do when managers’ mistakes are leaked to the public. It is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students taking courses on service operations management, services marketing and crisis management.
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Case Study: Korean Air: The Nut Rage Incident | Ivey Publishing