Korean Air active in helping local communities

Korean Air staffers wave after planting trees in a desert area in Mongolia, Tuesday. The carrier has planted trees there for 12 years as part of its Global Planting Project to prevent desertification. / Courtesy of Korean Air

By Kim Rahn

Coexistence with the local community has become an important factor enabling companies to grow sustainably.

Korean Air’s efforts for coexistence and growth go beyond its home country. It focuses not only on Korean society but also other countries where the airline operates.

“Chairman Cho Yang-ho of Hanjin Group, the carrier’s parent group, has stressed cooperation with subcontractors and social responsibility for local communities, saying that these are key to successful growth,” a Korean Air official said.

Global sharing

One of the airline’s most recent efforts was giving free transportation for relief goods to Nepal, which was seriously hit by a series of massive earthquakes.

Since the end of April, Korean Air delivered 45 tons of relief goods including 24,000 bottles of water, 2,000 blankets, instant rice products and clothing to help earthquake victims there.

It also transported 35 tons of goods prepared by the Korean Red Cross for free, and continues to carry goods that people across the country have sent to the Nepali embassy in Seoul.

“As the only carrier in Korea that operates direct flights between Incheon and Katmandu, we decided to give free transport to relieve the pain of the victims and help Nepali people recover from the disaster,” the official said.

Korean Air also transported relief goods for other disasters including the earthquake in Sichuan, China, in 2008, and another in Japan in 2011.

The carrier’s social responsibility programs date back to 2004 when it started the Global Planting Project in Mongolia to prevent desertification. Every year since then, Korean Air employees visit the country and plant trees in a desert there.

Employees of Korean Air and the carrier’s social network services members pose at a charity event held in a coffeehouse in southern Seoul in April. The airline holds the event every two months under different themes; the last one was Chinese culture.

“It was not easy at first, because the area was almost a wasteland and residents there did not have awareness about forestation. When we planted seedlings, they used to root them up and gave them to their cows and sheep,” the official said.

However, with consistent effort, the area has turned into 440,000 square meters of forest with 90,000 trees, becoming a successful example of overseas tree planting volunteer work.

The Mongolian government recognized the contribution, giving the company a medal for natural environment protection in May 2009. The medal is the highest honor granted by the country’s environment ministry.

This year, some 170 Korean Air workers planted trees in Mongolia together with some 600 residents in May.

Besides Mongolia, the carrier has planted trees in the Kubuchi Desert in China since 2007. Last September, about 70 workers and 50 Chinese college students took part in the planting.

The company plans to form a “Korean Air green forest” there with a goal to create a 4.5 square kilometers of forest with 1.3 million trees by 2016.

Korean Air has another long-term project to help underprivileged children in China. Since 2008, it donates desks, chairs, books and computers for children and remodels their schools in various regions of the country.

Domestic sharing

In Korea, the carrier has also carried out volunteer work for the needy.

Earlier this month, Korean Air staffers visited a welfare center for the elderly, cleaning the facility and offering entertainment programs for them.

It also provided children in low-income families and interracial families with an opportunity to visit the company’s headquarters and Gimpo International Airport as well as travel to Jeju Island.

In April, dozens of workers visited Myeongdongni Village in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province, which is a sister village of the company. They assisted in farming and helped the elderly there have medical checkups.

Since 2008, staffers fluent in English have offered English classes to children of Incheon Yongyu Elementary School near Incheon International Airport as it is not easy for those children to have private education separately from school lectures.

The company also participated in an education fair last September, offering visitors a chance to use a flight simulator and learn about the theory of flight.

Korean Air also provides briquettes to the underprivileged every winter, holds a charity bazaar every year, and organizes other regular charity events with members of the company’s social network service channels. Staffers of the company’s flight medical center offer medical services to migrant workers in Korea.

Workers of the company also donate small parts of their salary every month and the firm donates the same amount.