Ex-meal supplier refutes Asiana chief over quality issue

By Lee Kyung-min

In-flight catering service LSG Sky Chefs, a former partner of Kumho Asiana, struck back at the Korean carrier's Chairman Park Sam-koo, Thursday, calling his claimed reason for terminating their business contract “dishonest.”

“Regarding the alleged quality issues, we would like to bring to your attention that Asiana Airlines won several SkyTrax Awards for their outstanding in-flight catering over the contract period. We were also continuously rated Assured by industry standard quality auditors. Asiana raised no significant quality issues prior to 2017 which was when Asiana made the decision to exit the contract,” the company said in a statement.

The statement was in response to Park's remarks at Wednesday's press conference, during which he said his decision to terminate a contract with the Lufthansa subsidiary was a “choice to boost business competitiveness.” He also indicated he had issues with the former partner's quality control as well as a lack of transparency about raw material and production costs. He denied allegations the contract termination with the former meal supplier of 15 years was retribution-oriented.

The press conference followed the suicide of a head of one of the five contractors providing in-flight catering services to Sharp DO & CO, with which Kumho Asiana signed an “abusive” temporary contract while awaiting business resumption at a fire-destroyed factory of Gate Gourmet Korea (GGK). GGK is a new business partner that replaced LSG Sky Chefs amid speculation the latter refused to invest 160 billion won ($150 million) in the carrier's holding company.

The deceased man's company was under a three-month contract, among many that would have been paid only half of the price if meal provisions delayed flights by over 30 minutes. The death of the man resulted in an unprecedented in-flight meal shortage.