Asiana Orders 6 A380s

Asiana Announced today that it had ordered 6 A380s that it expects to receive from 2014 to 2017. Announcements regarding seat configuration and engines have yet to be made. However, as Asiana prides itself on providing premier service and the competition recently announced a spacious configuration on its own A380s, one can assume that Asiana’s planes will be at least as spacious as the competition’s. Asiana has also opted with Rolls-Royce engines for its order of A350s. Therefore it seems likely, despite recent issues over Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines on the A380s, that Asiana will stick with Rolls-Royce for this order as well as long as they can secure the proper guarantees.

Korean Air Promotes Chairman’s Daughter

It’s the time of year in Korean companies for personnel changes.

Last year was a difficult year for Korea’s major airlines. Asiana Airlines in particular suffered as a result of the economy and general trouble within the Kumho Asiana Group which was forced to enact a debt workout that left a third of its executives jobless. (Much of Kumho Asiana’s trouble came from its decision to purchase Daewoo Engineering & Construction in 2006.) Korean Air had its own problems posting net losses in 2008 and 2009 of $1.8 billion  and $77.8 million respectively.

With the turn around this year in the airline industry and both companies posting in the black it appears that personnel changes have been more favorable. Asiana didn’t lay off a single executive, actually adding a few to its numbers and Korean Air promoted an additional 45 executives. Among those 45 executives was the youngest daughter of Korean Air Chairman Cho Yang-ho, Emily Cho. While it is great to see a young female executive in Korea standing in stark contrast to the hierarchical age-based promotion nonsense that persists in this culture, it is unfortunate that it comes in the form of nepotism.

T’Way Airlines holds Open Hiring

T’way Airlines, which has been struggling to fill its one plane to Jeju, is in the news again.

This time they are offering an open hiring for all positions including maintenance and cabin crew. Apparently preference is being given for anyone with Japanese or Chinese language skills which might indicate plans in the near future to begin international operation to an adjacent land.

Regional flights tend to do much better in Korea than domestic, so this might be just the thing they need to keep them afloat.

Air Busan to begin daily service to Taipei

Asiana subsidiary Air Busan will launch daily service to Taipei from Busan starting next month on the 27th. To celebrate inauguration of their new route they are offering limited time deals on seats for as low as 149,000 KRW.

This strategy of offering super low fairs is not an original idea. Air Asia X employed a similar promotion when it recently launched its Seoul-KL route.  (Though the Air Asia X tickets were much cheaper at around 80,000 KRW).

Air Busan is the first Korean carrier of any kind to attempt to operate the Busan-Taipei route.

Hawaiian Airlines to Offer 4 weekly Direct Flights from Honolulu to Seoul

Hawaiian Airlines announced today that it would be offering 4 weekly direct flights from Honolulu to Seoul starting from Jan. 14, 2011.

Hawaiian will be operating a B767-300ER on the route and is preparing for its flight operation by educating its staff on Korean culture. They also have plans to have at least three cabin crew fluent in Korean on each flight as they try to improve their level of service. All in-flight materials and entertainment systems are being translated as well.

There has been an active effort of late to bring Korean tourists to Hawaii as the number of Japanese tourists have dropped off significantly since it peaked in 1997 at 2.15 million.

As Hawaiian already has a codeshare agreement with Korean Air in place, it is likely that KE will market this flight as well even though it adds capacity to a route on which KE has operated as the sole carrier*.

*Direct competition like this has been known to end even the best of friendships. So don’t be surprised if things sour between the two airlines as a result of the increased capacity

* Update: It looks as though KE will be placing its code on these 4 flights bringing the total service to twice daily flights.

Small Plane Crashes in Utah

NYCA tells me that a small single-engine aircraft crashed into a couple of houses starting a fire in Roy, Utah. This crash led to power outages and damage to several homes but remarkably killed no one. The strange thing is I used to work out near the end of that runway. I never expected to see it while surfing the web looking for airline news.

The Ogden-Hinckley Airport for those who don’t know has three runways and is one of the busiest airports in the country to have no commercial flights.

The film Con Air was also filmed here.

Korean LCCs crack 35% of Domestic Market Shares

According the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs Korean LCCs recorded 35.2% of domestic market shares for the month of October.

It was determined that the majority of this share came from the Gimpo-Jeju route, on which LCCs carried 413,654 PAX. By comparison Korean Air and Asiana carried 291,904 PAX and 417,699 PAX respectively.

Jin Air adds Incheon-Macau Route

Korea’s Jin Air (LJ) launched service to Macau from Incheon yesterday. Prior to yesterday the only other carrier to operate on this route was Air Macau (NX). For a while it was in question whether or not this route would actually start on time because, while LJ had started selling tickets it still had failed to receive government approval from Macau last week. Approval must have come through at the very last moment.

Ironically, Korean Air (KE), of which LJ is a full subsidiary, is codesharing on the competition’s flight. One would imagine that if Jin Air proves that it can operate successfully on this route, that it’s only a matter of time before KE moves its code to the LJ operated flight to maximize its profits.

That could possibly open an opportunity for Asiana or one of Korea’s other LCCs to place its code on NX’s flight. Air Macau is a partial subsidiary of TAP Portugal (20%) and Eva Air (5%).

Bad Press Day for Korean Air

Korean Air, which as I mentioned in a recent post has been getting a lot of positive exposure due to its intensive marketing campaign targeting global travellers, has taken a couple of steps backward in today’s news.

First this article in the Korea Times:

Korean Air, the nation’s largest flagship carrier, has been warned over faulty engine maintenance by the government, following a series of incidents in which its airplanes were forced to make emergency landings due to engine problems.

The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said Monday that it had conducted an extensive safety check on airplanes operated by Korean Air from Oct. 25 to 29, after three of its planes had engine troubles and made emergency landings over the past two months.

After the five-day inspection, the ministry found that Korean Air kept an engine in operation longer than it should have, and did not promptly fix oil leaks. An engine of a Boeing 747 airplane is required to be inspected after five long-haul flights. But it had been in operation for a total of nine flights.

Additionally, engines of seven Boeing 747 and one Airbus 330 were found to have been leaking engine oil.

But the airline had not taken steps to promptly repair the problem.

Then another article regarding the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics bid:

Pyeongchang 2018 have been given an official warning by the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Ethics Commission over a sponsorship deal involving the International Skating Union (ISU) and Korean Air, the company run by·Yang-Ho Cho, the chief executive and chairman of their bid.

I guess they should consider themselves on notice.

I’m tempted to say that few things are more Korean than short cuts on safety and questionable business relationships and, as Korea’s national carrier, that it’s only fitting that they represent the country.

However, I don’t think aircraft safety is an issue that should be joked about considering the disastrous consequences it can have. I hope they get the problem under control soon.

Korean LCCs post an average Load Factor of 72.7% on International Routes

The Korean Financial News reported today that the average load factor for Korean LCCs on international routes was 72.7%. That’s a fairly high average for a Korean LCC market that is just getting off the ground. (Maybe T’way should have gone international first rather than flying to Jeju during a non-peak season.) The individual routes are summarized in the table below: 

Airline	Route	L/F
Air Busan	PUS/FUK	76.5%
	PUS/KIX	68.6%
Jeju Air	GMP/NGO	70%
	ICN/HKG	74%
Jin Air	ICN/GUM	74.5%

Additionally, the article mentions that Jin Air started service between Jeju Island and Tsingtao in China on Nov. 11 for twice weekly service (both areas are economic free zones and hence not subject to air service agreements).

They will be operating a B737-800 with 189 seats configuration.

I have yet to actually fly on any of these carriers yet, but I hope to get a BX flight to Busan sometime in the next couple of months. These are great opportunities for young Korean college students who are looking to see the world on a budget.