In-flight violence
Cabin crew being trained to tackle violent acts in Seoul Reuters

Korean Air has vowed to impose tough safety standards to control the growing in-flight violence in the country's carriers.

Notably, US singer Richard Marx expressed his disappointment over the over the Airline's handling of a recent incident during his flight from Vietnam to South Korea on 20 December.

According to the revamped guidelines, crew members will be allowed to use stun guns and there will also be at least one male flight attendant during every trip. Korean Air Lines will also have the authority to ban passengers, who have had a history of unruly in-flight behaviour.

South Korea's government data reveals the number of unlawful acts during a flight has increased three times in the last five years, according to a report on the Reuters.

The recent incident involving a disruptive passenger became headlines when the US singer said last week that he had stepped in to control a "a psycho passenger" who had attacked a crew member and other passengers after consuming two and a half shots of whiskey. 

Marx slammed the crew members of not being trained and equipped enough to handle such violent acts on the plane. The singer's wife, Daisy Fuentes, who was travelling with him on the flight, shared a post on Instagram explaining how difficult the situation became for the crew members and the other passengers.

Korean Air President Chi Chan-hoon conceded that Asian carriers have not imposed tough standards unlike the US carriers, who have taken "stern action" but promised that they will use Marx's incident to come up with strong measures.

"While U.S. carriers have taken stern action on violent on-board behavior following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 (2001), Asian carriers including us have not imposed tough standards because of Asian culture," Korean Air Chang-hoon said, as quoted by the report.

"We will use the latest incident to put safety foremost and strengthen our safety standards," he said.

"We have decided to improve our conditions and procedure on using Taser guns to cope with violent acts and disturbances on board in a fast and efficient manner," a statement from Korean Air read.

Notably, the unruly passenger, who was on flight with Marx, apologised when questioned by the police but maintained he was not able to remember what had happened during the incident.