South Korea appeared determined yesterday to quickly end a strike by unionized pilots at Korean Air Co, the nation's largest airline and the world's biggest air-cargo carrier.
Minister of Construction and Transport Choo Byung-jik said that he would ask Labor Minister Kim Dae-hwan later yesterday to invoke the government's special powers to end the walkout, which began early yesterday.
Unionized pilots at Korean Air's smaller rival, Asiana Airlines Inc, staged a 25-day strike that ended on Aug. 10. The government ultimately used its special powers to intervene and ended the walkout -- a step used for industries considered critical to the national economy.
Choo's comment shows that the government is unlikely to wait that long to end the strike at Korean Air, where a work stoppage was certain to cause problems for South Koreans traveling overseas ahead of the year-end holidays, and could hurt the country's exports -- a key source of economic growth.
According to a Korean Air estimate, about 70 percent of the carrier's operations will have to be suspended due to the strike.
Korean Air said yesterday that it canceled a total of 204 passenger and cargo flights on the first day of the walkout, suspending about 53 percent of scheduled flights.
That included 30 international passenger flights, 150 domestic passenger flights and 24 cargo flights, the company said.
The airline's canceled overseas passenger destinations include Tokyo, Los Angeles, Dallas, Beijing and Shanghai and San Francisco, among others.
Korean Air expects to incur losses and additional expenses of 25.3 billion won (US$24.4 million) a day.
Park Byung-ryul, the union's spokesman, said 1,344 of the airline's 1,980 pilots belong to the union. He said about 500 union members had gathered together near Incheon International Airport near Seoul.
He also said it would take several days before the union would know how many members would decide to join the walkout.
The union is demanding an 8 percent hike in annual wages, while the airline has offered a 3 percent increase, the company and union said on Wednesday.
Korean Air said the union's demands are unacceptable considering high fuel costs and the unfavorable business environment facing the airline.
Last year, captains earned an average of 120 million won in annual pay, according to the airline. First officers earned 88 million won.
The airline's extensive overseas passenger destinations include Chicago, London, New York, Moscow, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Vladivostok, Tokyo, Toronto, Honolulu and Sydney.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS