The Seoul Regional Labor Committee has established that the training period received by contract crew members at Finnair should be counted as part of their employment duration. This ruling comes in response to a case involving a group of Finnair crew members, who claimed unfair dismissal after only a portion of them were converted to permanent positions following their initial contracts. The committee's decision indicates that if crew members had worked for over two years, including their training, they should be recognized as regular employees under the law.

The context of this decision is significant as it challenges the practice of temporary employment across the airline industry, which often seeks to limit employees' rights by classifying them as contract workers. In this particular case, the crew members were made to undergo a month-long training course before signing their contracts. If this training time is counted as work experience, it extends their employment period beyond the legal limit allowed for temporary contracts, forcing Finnair to reconsider its employment strategies.

This ruling can have far-reaching implications for not only Finnair but also similar companies within the airline sector. It sets a precedent for how training periods should be viewed in relation to contractual employment durations. Employers may need to reassess their hiring and training practices to avoid potential legal challenges related to unfair dismissal and worker rights protections in the future.