Broadcaster Park Su-hong apologizes repeatedly to passengers after baby's crying delays Guam flight an hour

A video of broadcaster Park Su-hong repeatedly bowing and apologizing to fellow passengers has spread online after his family caused a roughly one-hour departure delay on a flight to Guam by initially asking to disembark before changing their minds.

According to online community posts Wednesday, Park's family boarded Korean Air flight KE415 from Incheon to Guam on Sunday.

A passenger who said she was on the same flight shared an account of the incident on the Naver cafe "Guam Free Independent Travel Guide" in a post titled "It was so exhausting from departure to arrival."

The writer said Park's family had boarded the prestige-class cabin along with the family of fellow broadcaster Lee Yong-sik.

"Right before departure, with no delay yet, Park Su-hong's ajeossi's baby started crying really badly," the writer said. "He said the baby was crying so much that they would have to get off." The airline then spent roughly 50 minutes to an hour processing the disembarkation.

While the family waited, the baby calmed down and Park said they would stay on board. Korean Air reloaded the offloaded luggage, and the flight finally departed at 11:15 a.m. — 70 minutes behind schedule.

The writer said Park walked through the prestige cabin bowing repeatedly and saying "I'm sorry" to surrounding passengers. In the video that circulated online, Park can be seen doing exactly that, with a child's crying audible in the background.

The writer described Park as visibly flustered, adding: "It's natural for a baby to cry, but the cabin crew must have had a harder time because the prestige cabin was full." She added that prestige-class passengers quietly waited once they understood the situation, but that economy-class passengers likely had a harder time.

Meanwhile, as the controversy grew, Park addressed the incident Wednesday on his SNS, writing that he had "taken away precious time from many people and caused great inconvenience, and also caused trouble for airline staff," and offered a sincere apology.

He said the baby cried so intensely from the moment they boarded that he could not even get seated, and that in his panic he made a poor judgment call — deciding to get off out of concern that the crying would cause even greater disruption to other passengers during the long flight. He explained that the baby stopped crying while the family waited on board, prompting him to say they would stay, and that he had not realized the security re-screening and related procedures would cause such a significant delay.

"This was entirely due to my ignorance of aviation procedures, and there is no excuse whatsoever," Park said, again apologizing to the passengers and airline staff.