The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport attached to the airlines … I bought a plane ticket abroad, but most of them reimburse

▲ Aircraft.ⓒ Yonhap News

Although the government bought airline tickets overseas in advance, saying it was supporting a domestic airline affected by the 19 crown incident (Wuhan pneumonia) from China, most of them were reimbursed due to travel. business abroad became difficult. Some point out that it is a show management that does not look forward. Low-cost airlines (LCC) have no real use cases, so they only pay a reimbursement fee. It means that the government was trying to get rid of the package from the airline and then return it.

According to the data received from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport by Representative Song Eon-Seok of the National Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee of the National Assembly on the 6th, the foreign air tickets for domestic airlines that were prepaid by the government was 3,655 million won, of which 1.6% or 500 million won Actually, only billions of KRW were used.

The prepayment of air tickets was in charge of the Ministry of Lands, Infrastructure and Transportation, and a total of 97 localities participated, between government ministries and affiliated public institutions. The prepaid amount is △ Korean Air 2.174 billion won △ Asiana Airlines 9.51 billion won △ Jeju Air 166 million won △ Jin Air 126 million won △ T-Way Air 46 million won △ Air Busan 46 million won △ Eastar Air 7 million won △ Air Seoul That’s 6 million won.

Representative Song said, “Even considering the operational capacity and scale of each airline, the amount of distribution varies widely.” “The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation said that it recommends LCC tickets for about 30% of short-distance business trips, but it was arbitrarily distributed without specific plans or distribution standards.” . “Easta Airlines and Air Seoul prepaid an amount equal to the salary of one or two employees. In addition, Eastar Jet was suspended from March and prepayment was made.” He noted that it is the end of the “desktop administration”.

▲ Advance payment of government overseas air ticket ⓒ Song Eon-Seok office

A bigger problem is that most of the airline tickets pre-purchased abroad were refunded as it became difficult to travel abroad due to the Corona 19 pandemic. Among prepaid tickets for abroad, the amount used was KRW 51,961 million at the end of September, which represents only 1.6% of the total amount. LCC had no amount used.

Representative Song said: “With the government desk management, airlines only pay additional expenses such as guarantee insurance fees for refunds without revenue. In the case of Asiana Airlines, the actual amount used from the prepaid amount is 67, 6 million won. There are more, so the navel is bigger than the belly. ”

▲ Ministry of Lands, Infrastructure and Transportation ⓒ New daily DB