'COVID-19' Impact... Korean Air Also Implements 6-Month Employee Leave

70% of All Employees... Executives Also Return Part of Their Salaries Until Business Normalization

On the 9th, aircraft are parked at the apron of Incheon International Airport. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Yu Je-hoon] Amid the aviation industry being pushed to the brink of collapse due to the impact of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), Korean Air, the industry leader, is also initiating a rotating leave system for all employees.

Korean Air announced on the 7th that it will implement employee leave from the 16th of this month until October 15th, a period of six months, to respond to the deteriorating business environment caused by COVID-19.

According to Korean Air, the leave applies to employees working domestically, and the principle is that all surplus personnel, excluding essential staff by department, will take leave. The company explained that the actual scale of the leave exceeds 70% of the total workforce.

Meanwhile, to cope with the worsening business environment due to COVID-19, Korean Air has established a company-wide response system and decided to reduce executives' salaries differentially from April until business normalization (50% for vice presidents and above, 40% for senior managing directors, and 30% for managing directors). Additionally, Korean Air plans to actively improve the company's structure through the sale of idle assets such as the previously announced Songhyeon-dong site and, after consultation with the board of directors, through additional capital expansion.