A debate is brewing at Korean Air over an upcoming reorganization of the cabin line teams, one year before the launch of the merged airline with Asiana Airlines. The number of Heads of Team will be reduced, creating many who must step down, and they learned of their demotions early while checking flight schedules. Korean Air says there is no issue because the reshuffle was announced in advance and is proceeding through a normal evaluation process.
According to the aviation industry on the 25th, Korean Air plans to announce on the 26th a personnel reassignment plan for the cabin division. Effective in January next year, 140 of the 680 line Heads of Team in the cabin division will be changed to deputy Heads of Team. Line teams refer to cabin crew who work scheduled shifts on aircraft. They work in shifts timed to aircraft departures and arrivals.
Korean Air carried out a restructuring that downsized its line teams during COVID-19. Passenger demand plunged due to entry bans and quarantine measures in various countries, prompting large-scale route reductions and fewer passengers even on operating routes.
As the number of members assigned to each line decreased, the number of line teams increased, and the number of Heads of Team also grew. In exchange, the deputy Head of Team position was eliminated. As a result of that restructuring, current line teams operate with one Head of Team and about 6 to 15 members.
Starting next year, Korean Air plans to again operate line teams under a Head of Team–deputy Head of Team system. Some in the aviation industry interpret this as being mindful of the integration with Asiana Airlines. The idea is to strengthen communication by assigning one Korean Air veteran and one Asiana Airlines veteran as the Head of Team and deputy Head of Team in the merged airline's line teams. However, Korean Air is drawing a line, saying this job-grade revamp is unrelated to the merger.
Korean Air's position is that there is no issue because it gave advance notice of this reorganization and also went through an evaluation process. A Korean Air official said, "The line team overhaul reflects on-site requests, and we built sufficient consensus through advance briefings and town halls."
For this personnel action, Korean Air reportedly asked employees to conduct self-assessments based on work from January to October this year. The goal was to reflect self-assessments, including English scores and announcement scores, in personnel decisions. During this process, some Head-of-Team-level crew members, such as those who had entered a wage peak system, did not submit self-assessments, and most of them were reportedly assigned as deputy Heads of Team.
Some of those affected are pushing back. They say it is a problem that the personnel changes became known without receiving formal notice of reassignment. They reportedly learned of the changes in advance when they saw that the "rank code" had been changed in the in-house schedule-checking system (Crewnet). A Korean Air official said, "As soon as we identified the advance code exposure, we completed system measures," adding, "We are preparing measures to prevent a recurrence."