Eastar Air Accelerates Management Normalization with IT Workforce Recruitment

On the 24th, Eastar Jet decided to suspend all domestic flights following the suspension of international flights due to the spread of COVID-19. It is the first shutdown among Korean airlines. The photo shows an Eastar Jet passenger plane viewed from the domestic terminal observatory at Gimpo Airport in Gangseo-gu, Seoul on the same day. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] Eastar Jet, which is undergoing rehabilitation procedures, is expected to accelerate its business normalization as it begins securing essential personnel.

According to the aviation industry on the 7th, Eastar Jet started moving into its new office located near Balsan Station in Gangseo-gu, Seoul, in the Kukuma-gok Building yesterday afternoon. The new office, approximately 500 pyeong in size, including part of the 8th floor and the 9th floor, is currently preparing to restore servers to verify remaining claims.

To this end, the company plans to secure about 50 personnel necessary for business normalization within this month, including IT experts for restoring the AWS (Amazon Web Services) cloud system, which had been used as the internal network. The recruitment method will combine reinstatement of existing Eastar Jet employees and some new hires.

Earlier, Eastar Jet judged that additional IT work was necessary to finalize the amount of claims to be repaid and requested an extension of the submission deadline from the Seoul Bankruptcy Court last month.

Once the system restoration is complete, Eastar Jet plans to finalize the claim amount and submit a rehabilitation plan to the court that includes the utilization plan for the acquisition price of about 110 billion KRW. Subsequently, by October at the latest, the company will proceed with the process of seeking creditor approval on the repayment rate through a creditors' meeting.

In particular, since most of the acquisition amount from Eastar Jet’s debt of about 200 billion KRW will be used for public interest repayments such as unpaid wages and severance pay, creditor approval of the repayment rate is expected to be key to business normalization.

Furthermore, starting with IT personnel, the company plans to sequentially secure essential workers necessary for operations, including finance and reissuance of the Air Operator Certificate (AOC). The AOC is a system that inspects whether an airline has the organization, personnel, facilities, and equipment to ensure safe operations and is an essential condition for flight operations. Eastar Jet had suspended all routes in March last year and had its AOC qualification suspended in May of the same year.

If the personnel reinforcement proceeds as planned, the number of Eastar Jet employees is expected to increase to about 20% of the total workforce (around 470) by the time the rehabilitation plan is submitted to the court next month. After securing essential personnel, the company plans to reinstate employees in the order of existing voluntary retirees, laid-off workers, and general resignations, considering the business situation.

An Eastar Jet official said, "Starting with moving into the office, we are doing our best to achieve business normalization as soon as possible through essential personnel," adding, "We plan to proceed with the acquisition process smoothly with the goal of resuming flights within this year."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.