Photo from May 2008
“From departure to arrival, the world is my destination.”
This billboard was near the corner of Gramercy Place and Wilshire Boulevard, near Koreatown. That’s a dove in the woman’s hand.
Korean Air (KAL) celebrated its 40th anniversary on March 1, 2009. It was in 1969 that the Hanjin Group bought the airline from the Korean government.
대한항공 = Daehan Hanggong = Korean Airlines
Korean Air office on Wilshire Boulevard, part of the Wilshire Grand Hotel complex in downtown Los Angeles. I saw a professionally dressed woman working inside, but I didn’t check to see if they were actually open Saturday morning.
The Wilshire Grand Hotel was bought by Korean Air in 1989. The airlines as a subsidiary of the logistics giant Hanjin Group is planning on razing the 1950s-designed hotel and replacing it with a housing tower and an office tower.
Korean Air was founded by the South Korean government in 1962 as Korean Air Lines (KAL). It was bought by the Hanjin Transport Group in 1969. Korean Air started its passenger service to Los Angeles in 1972.
I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers in which he analyzes Korean Air’s accidents in the past. I remember the train station I was in in 1997 when the televisions screens were suddenly flooded with news that KAL Flight 801 had crashed in Guam.
Asiana Airlines became very popular around this time, but Korean Air seems to have recovered its reputation in the years since.
