Chairman Cho Won-tae Receives 6.5 Billion KRW from Korean Air and Hanjin KAL in First Half of the Year

Korean Air 3.7 Billion Won · Hanjin KAL 2.8 Billion Won
Impact of Korean Air Performance Bonuses

Cho Won-tae, Chairman of Hanjin Group, is delivering his acceptance speech after receiving the "39th 2024 Korea CEO Award" at the Summer Convergence Academic Conference held on the 13th at the Gyeongju Hwabaek Convention Center in Gyeongju, Gyeongsangbuk-do. [Image source=Yonhap News]

Cho Won-tae, Chairman of Hanjin Group, received approximately 6.5 billion KRW in compensation in the first half of this year.

According to the semi-annual reports of Korean Air and Hanjin KAL on the 14th, Chairman Cho received a total of 6,458,300,000 KRW in compensation during the first half of this year. This is an increase of 15.9% compared to the first half of last year.

Specifically, he received 3,690,420,000 KRW from Korean Air and 2,767,880,000 KRW from Hanjin KAL. The compensation from Korean Air increased by 41.3% compared to the first half of last year, while the compensation from Hanjin KAL decreased by 6.5%. The sharp increase in compensation from Korean Air was due to an increase in performance bonuses. A Korean Air official stated, "Following last year's labor-management negotiations, the maximum limit for performance bonuses was expanded to 500% of the monthly salary. Reflecting excellent business performance, including record-high sales last year, a 407% performance bonus was paid this year." General employees also received management performance bonuses at the same payment rate as Chairman Cho.

The safety incentive paid this year also contributed. The safety incentive is a type of reward paid when certain safety standards are met in self-assessments of maintenance, flight operations, and other safety criteria, regardless of business performance. Since the safety targets set last year were achieved this year, the safety incentive was paid to all executives and employees, including Chairman Cho. No safety incentives were paid last year.

Meanwhile, Korean Air recorded sales of 4.023 trillion KRW in the second quarter of this year, achieving the highest quarterly performance ever. This was due to the recovery of passenger demand and increased e-commerce cargo demand from China.