Asiana Airlines executives and striking pilots failed to end a three-week-long walkout early yesterday in talks that had raised hopes for a conclusion to South Korea's worst-ever aviation strike after the government softened a threat to use emergency powers to halt it.
Asiana spokesman Oh Kyung-keun said that a marathon meeting that lasted into the early hours yesterday failed to achieve an agreement. He said Asiana president C.B. Park and other top executives would meet later yesterday to decide what to do next.
The government last week warned it was prepared to end the walkout if no conclusion was reached over the weekend. The labor ministry softened its tone on Sunday, saying that while it expected Asiana and the union would reach an agreement it remained prepared to step in.
No further talks were scheduled yesterday between the pilots and management, Asiana's Oh said. "It's a dangerous situation," he added.
The pilots' demands include fewer flying hours, more say in management decisions and a higher retirement age. Both sides have offered concessions, but not enough to end the walkout, now in its twenty-third day.
If the government intervenes, Asiana's union would have to immediately stop the strike for 30 days -- a step used in sectors considered critical to the national economy. The government has only invoked such powers twice: in 1993 during unrest at Hyundai Motor Co, and in 1969 at Korea Shipbuilding Corp.
For several days, Asiana president C.B. Park and other top executives have been trying to persuade union officials to end the strike, holding talks in a mountainous area in central South Korea where the pilots have established a base.
The talks have focused on so-called "deadhead" hours, the time spent traveling by air to locations from where pilots are scheduled to fly aircraft.
The pilots want that time to be counted as part of their total flying hours.
Asiana is the country's No. 2 carrier after rival Korean Air. Asiana's international destinations include New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Bangkok, New Delhi, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Sydney and Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
The strike, which began on July 17, has been costly for Asiana, forcing it to cancel all its cargo flights, over 1,800 domestic flights and more than 100 international passenger flights during the peak summer travel season.
The airline said on Sunday it was canceling a total of 314 international flights for the entire month of August, including service to Frankfurt, on Aug. 15, its first to Europe so far.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS