The former Korean Air Lines executive jailed for her outburst over in-flight service, known as the "nut rage" case, asked for leniency during an appeal hearing today as she sought to reduce her one-year prison term.
Heather Cho, the daughter of the airline's chairman, was sentenced in February over the December 5 incident at New York's John F Kennedy airport, where she forced a Korean Air flight crew chief off the plane because she was unhappy about the way she was served macadamia nuts.
On the opening day of Cho's appeal hearing in Seoul High Court today, her lawyers said Cho admitted to the abusive acts towards a flight attendant and the plane's chief steward but she did not have any intent to disrupt flight operations.
A lower court had ruled that the former vice president and head of in-flight service at the airline had violated South Korean aviation law by ordering the plane to return to the gate after it had started to taxi.
The incident stoked widespread ridicule, as well as outrage over the conduct of the country's powerful family-run conglomerates called chaebol.
A flight attendant at the centre of the case has separately filed a civil lawsuit against her in New York.
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