Pledis and Asiana Airlines respond to complaints about Seventeen boarding a flight late

[juhli.livejournal.com]

Pledis Responds To Complaint About #SEVENTEEN Boarding Their Flight Late https://t.co/5iOPPRRJ9j pic.twitter.com/ziRs5WXgWe

— Soompi (@soompi) June 21, 2019

Pledis Entertainment has made an official statement regarding SEVENTEEN’s alleged tardiness in boarding a recent flight. On June 21, the agency spoke to multiple news outlets about an online complaint that SEVENTEEN had been late in boarding a flight to Korea earlier this week.

In the complaint, which was posted on social media, someone who claimed to have been a passenger on SEVENTEEN’s June 17 flight from Japan to Korea wrote, “I traveled from Okinawa to Korea on the same flight as a certain boy group, and because of them, the flight was delayed by almost an hour.” The post continued, “[A flight attendant] announced that there were passengers who hadn’t boarded yet and asked us to wait, and [the group] arrived late and headed to business class with their faces covered.”

A representative of Pledis Entertainment later responded to the complaint by apologizing and explaining the circumstances behind the flight’s late departure.

“Although [SEVENTEEN] arrived and checked in on time, the airport held up the members due to issues with their paperwork,” said the representative. “Due to the weather at the time, [the plane] was already scheduled to depart 30 minutes late, but it’s true that the issues with SEVENTEEN’s paperwork further delayed the flight.”

The representative added, “Although it was unintentional on our part, we apologize for the fact that our [paperwork] issues ended up delaying the time of departure.”


Although the boy band SEVENTEEN was embroiled in controversy over a late flight, it was confirmed that the flight was delayed due to the demand of Naha Airport, not to the fault of SEVENTEEN.

Seventeen carried out a fan meeting schedule from Okinawa, Japan, on July 15-17, and was scheduled to return to Korea on the Asiana Airlines' flight OZ171 that departs at 1:20 p.m. on July 17. They arrived at Naha Airport an hour before and completed all necessary procedures smoothly, but boarded the plane "unintentionally" late as they had to fill out some re-entry documents as per the airport's request.

To make matters worse, the flight had already been scheduled to take off 30 minutes later due to bad weather, and due to the late work done by Naha Airport, there was a total delay of an hour and 20 minutes. The flight left Okinawa at 2:40 p.m. and arrived in Incheon at 4:30 p.m. It arrived "45 minutes" later than the scheduled arrival time of 3:45 p.m. (Making the extra delay time without the bad weather 15 minutes).

▲Factcheck 1. Did SEVENTEEN check in late?

SEVENTEEN arrived at around 12:20 p.m., an hour before departing from Naha Airport in Okinawa, to board Flight OZ171 scheduled to depart at 1:20 p.m. Under Asiana Airlines regulations, the corresponding flight will open the counter two hours before departure, ending boarding 50 minutes before departure. Whether you come two hours before or an hour before the start, it doesn't matter. You only have to be there 50 minutes before the start.

Some people are asking if Seventeen should have arrived at the airport two hours before departure, but celebrities often arrive in time for the deadline because it can be crowded if fans flock to the airport. Asiana Airlines said it has completed the baggage procedure as normal, adding that there were no problems in the process.

▲Factcheck 2. The reason why the departure procedure was delayed was 're-entry document'

SEVENTEEN completed their check-in without problems, but it was confirmed that they were delayed after being asked to fill out a "re-entry document" during the departure review process. Pledis said, "The procedure was carried out normally. But it was delayed because the airport asked us to fill out a 're-entry report,'" they said.

Seventeen's visa was a performance visa. The visa expiry dates for Seventeen's visas were not the same overall (some would expire on June 28th, others don't expire till August 27th), so the airport asked them to fill out 're-entry documents', declaring that they have no intention of re-entering the country within the visa expiry period.

Earlier, it was confirmed that Asiana Airlines had informed SEVENTEEN that it was not necessary to fill out (re-entry) documents. However, Naha Airport suddenly requested the documents, and so Asiana Airlines waited for Seventeen. Asiana Airlines also said they waited because they knew Seventeen were late due to the airport's demand.

▲Factcheck3. No celebrity favors.

Asiana Airlines said, "We waited because they had completed the baggage procedure normally and we knew they were late due to the airport's demand. It would have been the same if other regular passengers were in the same situation. There is no such thing as a special preferential policy toward celebrities," they said.


source: @soompi, soompi, naver, sportsworldi, dispatch, wildxgolden, banirose

Omona, have you experienced any airport mishaps?

Comments

[cosmicdaze.livejournal.com]

glad i was able to read the full article. i saw the tweets abt this yesterday and i was like what kind of paperwork could they possibly have needed to fill out if they were going back to korea? i wonder why the airport made them fill out the paperwork if asiana said it wasn't necessary, weird.

my only airport mishap is when my friend and i were leaving fukuoka to fly back to busan and we underestimated how long it would take to get to the airport from the city and we arrived at the airport late and missed out flight, so i had to fork over $300 for us to fly back with another airline 😩 ever since then i've always arrived at the airport for international flights at least two hrs early

[kyulkyung.livejournal.com]

truly their dumbest controversy yet.

in my experience flights get delayed more often than not. if you don't plan in enough time in-between flights, that's on you.

[blck-ink.livejournal.com]

i know how annoying it can be having to depart much later than scheduled and it always feels better if you can blame someone. but if whatever that has been reported is true, seventeen clearly wasn't the blame. naha should have informed them earlier that the those documents needed to be filled out again.

i remember how i took a flight not too long ago and it took us almost an hour to actual depart cause someone in first class wanted a certain drink, which wasn't available on the planr, and kept arguing with the staff to bring it on board. it was a mess that took too long.

[juhli.livejournal.com]

I'm glad this issue got cleared up so fast. I haven't seen any english-written sites pick up on the Asiana Airlines statement yet, maybe it's because the "controversy" has already become irrelevant.

Every time i fly with Air France, there is a problem. Once it was a delay that caused us a missed transfer flight and they could only book us on another flight the next day (the bright side was the very delicious hotel restaurant they sent us to haha).

[scionofawhisper.livejournal.com]

At least they got their name in the news? That seems to be worth something in Korea. And... they got vindicated in the end anyway. :3

[hallyujah.livejournal.com]

Wow, MASSIVE scandal. Think they should be in YG!

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

My only wish is that their future controversies keep being as harmless as this one lol

[pseudo-shigure.livejournal.com]

naaah. airlines wouldn't care about me if i have problems with my visa lbr, asiana did wait for them.

[nekokonneko.livejournal.com]

Airlines do wait for regular people if they've checked in and their bags are on-board. I've never not heard repeated final boarding announcements for a passenger on at least 1 flight while at the airport.

[pseudo-shigure.livejournal.com]

Yes. But i think theyre lucky the flight is delayed anyway and they ended up only causing them 15 mins late. Bc i imagine they took more than that to sort their form since theres a lot of them. And i dont think airlines would wait for you longer than that

[nekokonneko.livejournal.com]

I've never timed it but I think they wait a good while because they otherwise have to go through the cargo hold to remove all their bags, and that could take even longer than just waiting for a straggler who went to the wrong gate or lingered too long in the the duty free. I especially see it on this case since the airport knew where they were and what they were doing