Excluding male applicants in the recruitment process of airline cabin crew is gender discrimination and the NHRCK recommended that Korean Air, Inc. (hereafter Korean Air) reform its recruitment practice.
The Commission conducted an inquiry as to whether the practice of recruiting male cabin crew through an internal recruitment process making only those who were hired for general positions eligible whereas recruiting female cabin crew through both internal and public recruitment was discriminatory against men. The findings of the inquiry revealed that all domestic airlines except Korean Air and many foreign airlines, such as Northwest Airlines that recruit Korean cabin crew do not place restrictions based on gender. However, Korean Air has excluded male cabin crew from the public recruitment process since 1997.
Korean Air claimed that in order to deal effectively with diverse passenger demands, the practice was to recruit cabin crew from a pool of general, technical, and computing staff who already had experience in ground services such as reservation, ticketing, and transportation through an internal recruitment process. Also it was argued that male crews serve a long term in general so as to secure enough pool of recruits through internal recruitment only whereas female crews have a higher rate of temporary leave or retirement so that it was not possible to secure the necessary pool of recruits through internal recruitment and the company had to resort to public recruitment. Furthermore, the company added that compared to male, females have more essential qualities to successfully perform as a cabin crew such as sensitivity and kindness.
The Commission, however, concluded that Korean Air’s autonomy in personnel management did not justify the exclusion of male applicants who met the eligibility criteria for the public recruitment process; skills necessary for ground services such as reservation, ticketing, and transportation can acquired through training after being hired; and the internal recruitment process was insufficient to resolve the problem of completely removing the opportunity to apply for those male applicants who had the necessary qualification (TOEIC score of 470 to 750).
Moreover, considering the fact that the fundamental job duties of a cabin crew as stated in the Aviation Act relates to security and safety such as conducting emergency exit procedures, customer service duties are not duties exclusive to women, and all domestic airlines except Korean Air and many foreign airlines that recruit Korean cabin crew do not restrict applications based on sex, the Commission concluded that excluding male from the public recruitment process was unreasonable discrimination even if female cabin crews scored higher than male cabin crews in a customer satisfaction survey.
The Commission, therefore, concluded that Korean Air’s recruitment practice amounted to gender discrimination and was in violation of Article 11 Paragraph 1 of the Constitution, Article 7 of the Equal Employment and Support for Work- Family Balance Act, Article 19 of the Fundamental Employment Policies Act, International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and the Convention Concerning Discrimination in respect to Employment and Occupation and recommended that Korean Air reform its recruitment practices.
In the process of the above inquiry, Asiana Airlines reformed its practice and removed gender restrictions in the public recruitment process starting from the 2008 recruitment and the inquiry was closed as such. The Commission will continue to monitor recruitment policies and processes so that applications are not restricted based on gender without reasonable grounds.
