Korean Air faces fine for wrong ticket issuance

By Kim Rahn

Singer Bobby Kim

Korean Air may face up to 10 million won in fines for issuing a ticket to singer Bobby Kim with somebody else’s name.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said Thursday that it was investigating and might fine the company for violating the Aviation Security Law.

The amount will be decided later, but the law gives 10 million won as the maximum.

The wrong ticket was discovered during an incident where the Korean-American singer caused a disturbance on a flight from Incheon to San Francisco on Jan. 7 and sexually harassed a female flight attendant.

Kim’s agency, Oscar Entertainment, said Kim was upset after Korean Air gave him an economy class seat instead of the business class one he had booked with a mileage upgrade. Angry, he had several glasses of wine, got drunk and behaved improperly, which he claimed he did not remember.

The carrier was later found to have issued a ticket with the name of Kim Robert, another passenger, instead of his real name, Kim Robert Do Kyun.

Although he had different names on his ticket and his passport, airline staff, security check officers and immigration officers at Incheon International Airport failed to notice the difference.

An official at the immigration office said that when a person had a long English name, the whole name was sometimes not written on the ticket, just part of the name.

“As ‘Kim Robert’ was the same, the officers may not have noticed it,” he said.

Korean Air learned about the wrong ticket when the real Kim Robert came for his ticket after Bobby Kim. But it failed to correct the error, so two people took the plane with one person’s name.

The carrier has admitted the mistake.