Korean prepares fleet old and new for capacity step up

Korean Air’s plan to raise to capacity as Covid travel restrictions continue to ease will come as some of its grounded aircraft are returned to service and the airline prepares to introduce its second new aircraft type this year. The SkyTeam carrier is set to take delivery of its first Airbus A321neos in September, having introduced its first Boeing 737 Max 8 in March. “I’m very happy with the aircraft, it’s very economical, very reliable,” Korean Air CE Walter Cho said of the Max during a media round table at the recent IATA AGM in Doha. Korean Air ordered 30 Max 8s in 2015 and, after taking delivery of the first of the type in February, is operating three Max 8s. “Our fourth one is with Jin Air,” he says, referring to the airline’s low-cost unit. “Our plan is to put eight Max’s there [Jin Air] and it will keep its NGs,” he says. Cirium fleet’s data show Jin Air operates 21 Boeing 737-800/900s. Korean Air is also preparing for the arrival for the first of 50 A321neos. “They should be coming in very soon,” says Cho. “We have three deliveries this year from September. The A321 will have full-flat seats and will be used in Asia for long-distance routes.” The airline is currently at about 30% of pre-Covid capacity levels as border restrictions in the region have slowly begun easing. It has outlined plans to lift this to around 50% by adding frequencies and capacity from July. That includes deploying Airbus A380s onto its Hong Kong and Tokyo Narita routes by September, on top of plans to operate the superjumbo on New York flights in July. ”Nine out of 10 [A380s] were stored,” says Cho. ”We are in the process of destoraging one at this time, and will probably have three by the end of the year, and the rest shortly [after]. Passengers love the plane and we have a lot of business class seats on it, so it’s a very good aircraft to fly on high demand routes.”<br/>