Delta and Korean Air are taking steps to mend a chilly relationship, announcing an expansion of their partnership Wednesday where each airline can sell tickets on some of each other's flights. Delta will also launch a new non-stop flight from its hometown of Atlanta to Seoul Incheon International Airport in June. The two carriers were founding members of the SkyTeam alliance in 2000. But that relationship started to fray after Delta reportedly pushed for — and Korean rejected — a joint venture agreement across the Pacific Ocean. In such a deal, airlines share revenue and work together on pricing for a set of flights. Since then, Delta has made Korean a weaker partner than other SkyTeam members such as Air France and KLM. It became harder for Delta fliers to earn miles on Korean and each airline made it harder to sell flights on the other's carrier — something Wednesday's announcement reverses. Delta also started to look elsewhere for its Asian expansion. For instance, last summer, Delta purchased a 3.55% stake in China Eastern and started to talk about connecting passengers through its Shanghai hub. Since that time, Delta has a new CEO, Ed Bastian, and has been shifting its Asia strategy again. Just last month, it eliminated several more routes to Tokyo's Narita International Airport, a sign that it is starting to dismantle that hub.<br/>
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Delta Wednesday cut its profitability guidance for the third quarter after a computer system crash at the leading US airline last month caused chaos, forcing it to cancel about 2,300 flights. Paul Jacobson, Delta’s CFO, told a conference the airline expects operating profit margins to fall to between 18 and 19% in the three months to September 30, compared with a previous forecast of 19 to 21%. Other US airlines have encountered information technology problems this year that disrupted flights, and Mr Jacobson stressed Delta was seeking to avoid a repeat of its IT outage, which caused widespread problems for the carrier’s booking, check-in and flight systems. “It becomes a complete tragedy if we don’t use it as a learning experience,” said Jacobson, adding “we like to think of ourselves as an industrial transportation company but we are every bit as much a technology company as well and the reliability of the systems has to match that”. Jacobson said the knock-on effects of the IT outage would cut Delta’s pre-tax income by $150m in Q3.<br/>