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Gender discrimination in recruiting cabin crew(a suo moto investigation) [2008] KRNHRC 5 (1 January 2008)

The Commission conducted a suo moto investigation into whether Airlines
discriminated against men by recruiting male flight attendants only through internal job
positings while hiring female flight attendants through both internal and external job
postings.

The Commission found that Airlines had excluded men from open job postings for
cabin crew since 1997, while all the other domestic airlines and foreign airlines hiring
Korean flight attendants did not exclude a single gender from employment.
Airlines said that it used internal job postings to recruit flight attendants out of its
current employees in general affairs, technical, and computing departments who had
experience in ground services including reservation, ticketing, and baggage check-in in
order to meet the needs of passengers. They claimed that it was easy to recruit male flight
attendants through internal job postings, because male employees usually worked for the
company for longer years, while it had to hire female flight attendants using both internal
and external job postings because female employees tended to work for the company for a
shorter period of time. In addition, it insisted that women are more suitable for providing
in-flight service because they are more delicate and kinder than men.

However, the Commission concluded that autonomy in recruitment could not justify the
exclusion of a single gender from open job postings. It pointed out that employees could be
trained for ground services such as reservation, ticketing, and baggage check-in after being
hired. Also, the Commission noted that internal job postings were not sufficient to resolve
the inequality, as even men outside the company who met all the qualifications for
application (TOEIC score 470~750) had no chance of become a flight attendant. The
essential duty of a cabin crew is to ensure passenger safety, such as providing assistance
during emergency exits, according to the Aviation Act; thus services for passengers can
both be provided by men and women. Additionally, all other domestic airlines and most
foreign airlines employing Korean flight attendants did not exclude certain gender from
open job posts. In consideration of the above facts, the Commission ruled that not giving
men the chance to apply for company employment as a flight attendant could not be
justified, regardless of whether customer surveys should higher satisfaction levels for
services of female flight attendants over those of male flight attendants.

The Commission ruled that Airlines' employment practices constituted a gender
discrimination under Article 11.1 of the Constitution, Article 7 of the Act on Gender
Equality in Employment and the Support for Work-Life Balance, Article 19 of the Basic
Employment Policy, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
and the ILO Convention 111, Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention,
1958. It recommended that Airlines improve its employment practices.