A new digital journey for Korean Air passengers thanks to Quantum Metric

Quantum Metric, a SaaS platform that helps organizations build better digital products faster, has announced a new partnership with Korean Air to help the beleaguered airline to get ahead of the competition and provide the best possible digital booking experience for travellers. 

Korean Air has experienced massive growth in app usage, leading the company to aim for an online customer experience that can rival face-to-face interactions. As part of this initiative, the company has partnered with Quantum Metric to help gain visibility and deep understanding of where customers are experiencing friction digitally, and prioritise product development. 

Throughout the pandemic, Korean Air managed to stay agile, continuing with many of its internal flights safely while many other airlines kept plans grounded worldwide. The company successfully shifted its international business away from passenger transport to PPE and corporate freight, however this was only a temporary solution. 

SkyCell and Korean Air partner to promote stable and sustainable cold container supply management in growing Korean market

 SkyCell, one of the leading manufacturer of data-driven temperature-controlled containers for the pharmaceutical industry, has partnered with Korean Air Cargo as it focuses on business development in Korea. The partnership follows SkyCell’s recent launch of a service centre in Seoul and the appointment of Charlie Cho as Business Development Director for Korea as of January 1st. 

The partnership comes at a crucial point with the increase in demand for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments this year. Cold-chain maintenance for vaccine transportation is a significant challenge for the global logistics industry, and together SkyCell and Korean Air ensure these lifesaving medicines reach patients timely and in pristine condition. 

Korean Air further cuts services

Due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, Korean Air has reduced or suspended some of its routes.  

Suspended or Reduced Routes

(All routes are between Incheon unless otherwise noted)

Americas Honolulu, San Francisco, Boston, New York, Chicago, Washington, Dallas, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto

Europe Tel Aviv, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid, Vienna, Zagreb, Istanbul, Zurich, London, Prague, Frankfurt, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam

Middle East Dubai

Korean Air cutting flights as it battles for survival

The Coronavirus is being strongly felt in the Asia Pacific region,  particularly hard hit is South Korea with at least 7,513 confirmed cases.  The national airline Korean Air has had to take drastic measures and has axed around 80% of its international flights over the next few weeks, now the CEO Woo Kee-hong has issued a stark warning to staff that the airline may not survive.

In a letter to employees he said, the airline couldn't predict how long the crisis would last, "But if the situation continues for a longer period, we may reach the threshold where we cannot guarantee the company's survival," in the message to staff memo Woo Kee-hong also stated "We have gone through numerous difficulties for the past 51 years, and I'm confident that we will overcome this crisis together,"

In a press statement, the airline said the memo was designed to express to staff the severity of the situation and to encourage more understanding of the cuts in capacity. 

Full list of cancelled flights. 

IBS help Korean Air Cargo improve profitability

 IBS Software's iCargo platform has overhauled Korean Air cargo pricing model by deploying an integrated revenue management system, to improve yields and boost profitability. An industry first, the solution provides intelligent, intuitive analysis and algorithms, fully integrated to the core sales and booking system that delivers unrivalled insight into critical commercial operations – allowing Korean Air to determine the selling price of capacity and ensure maximum profitability per shipment carried.

NOH SAM SUG, Head of Cargo & Senior Vice President, Korean Air cargo, said, "I am very pleased to announce the successful go-live of IBS' iCargo Revenue Management solution at Korean Air Cargo. I also take this opportunity to thank the teams from IBS and Korean Air who worked together to develop the integrated revenue management solution that will help Korean Air to better match the cargo supply and demand while improving profitability. Korean Air looks forward to partner with IBS Software in future opportunities related to cargo and other core airline business systems as well".

"At IBS we're thrilled to have such a progressive partner in Korean Air, a dominant player in the air cargo industry who is leaving no stone unturned in their quest to modernise their operations to boost profitability and deliver exceptional customer service," said Ashok Rajan, SVP & Head of Airline Cargo Services, IBS Software. 

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Delta completes the next step in its take over plan of Korean Air

The US mega-carrier, Delta has completed its next step towards a take over of joint venture partner, Korean Air with the acquisition of a 10% equity stake in Hanjin-KAL, the largest shareholder of Korean Air. 

“Together with the team at Korean Air, we have a vision to deliver the world’s leading trans-Pacific joint venture for our shared customers, offering the strongest network, the best service and the finest experience connecting the U.S. with Asia,” said Delta CEO Ed Bastian. “This is already one of our fastest-integrating and most successful partnerships, and experience tells us this investment will further strengthen our relationship as we continue to build on the value of the joint venture.”

Delta and Korean Air operate the industry’s most robust trans-Pacific joint venture, providing customers with seamless access to more than 290 destinations in the U.S. and over 80 destinations in Asia, including the partnership’s award-winning hub at Seoul-Incheon (ICN). 

Korean Air to Introduce Boeing 787-10 for First Time in Korea

Korean Air has announced that it will introduce 20 Boeing 787-10s, the largest member of the Dreamliner family, for the first time in Korea, and add 10 more 787-9s to its existing fleet.

Korean Air, South Korea’s flagship carrier, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on 18 June to purchase 30 Boeing wide-body aircraft at the Le Bourget Airport, where the 2019 Paris Air Show is currently being held. Present at the signing ceremony were Walter Cho, Chairman and CEO of Korean Air; Kevin McAllister, President and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes; Ihssane Mounir, Senior Vice President of Commercial Sales and Marketing of The Boeing Company; and John L. Plueger, CEO and President of Aircraft Leasing Corporation.

The decision reflects Korean Air’s continuous effort to modernize the fleet, and the new 787 aeroplanes will replace its existing aeroplanes, such as A330s, B777s, and B747s.

Delta equity investment deepens ties to joint venture partner Korean Air

Delta has acquired a 4.3% equity stake in Hanjin-KAL, the largest shareholder of Korean Air. The investment demonstrates Delta’s ambition of doing a complete buy-out of the South Korean carrier. However, for the time being, the US airline is content to slowly edge forward, by the way of the 'joint-venture' they launched in 2018. The deal is not expected to impact on passengers of either airline. Delta has publically stated it intends to increase its equity stake to 10% over time, after receiving regulatory approval. However, moves are already in play to be able to increase that amount in future. 

“Together with the team at Korean Air, we have a vision to deliver the world’s leading trans-Pacific joint venture for our shared customers, offering the strongest network, the best service and the finest experience connecting the U.S. with Asia,” said Delta CEO Ed Bastian. “This is already one of our fastest-integrating and most successful partnerships, and experience tells us this investment will further strengthen our relationship as we continue to build on the value of the joint venture.”

Korean Air agrees an 'intent' letter to 'acquire' 30 787 Dreamliners - yet holds secret talks with Airbus over A350 purchase

Boeing rushed out a press release advising that Korean Air and leasing firm Air Lease Corporation has agreed to add 30 new 787 Dreamliner aircraft to its fleet, with a commitment to purchase 10 new 787-10s and 10 additional 787-9 aeroplanes valued at $6.3 billion at current list prices. As part of this agreement, Korean Air will also lease 10 787-10s from ALC.

"As we continue to innovate our product offering, the 787 Dreamliner family will become the backbone of our long-haul fleet for many years to come," said Walter Cho, Chairman of Korean Air. 

Korean Air carried out global planting project in Mongolia for 16th consecutive year

Photo Korean Air

 Korean Air  recently carried out efforts to fight desertification in Mongolia for the 16th consecutive year. This year was especially meaningful as employees from Delta Air Lines joined the green efforts to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the joint venture between the two airlines. Korean Air and Delta Air Lines aim to work together through not only the successful joint venture but also joint community services in the future, according to Korean Air.

About 120 Korean Air employees and 30 Delta Air Lines employees worked with local residents and students to plant trees in Baganuur, Mongolia, a region undergoing rapid desertification. Korean Air has been growing the “Korean Air Forest” in the area by planting trees every year since 2004, with the aim to stop desertification and protect the environment.

Korean Air starts Boston service

Korean Air, with its joint venture partner Delta Air Lines, launched non-stop flights between Boston and Seoul on April 12th. 

“Korean Air is the largest Transpacific airline and we’ve been eyeing Boston for a long time,” said the airline’s Vice President of Marketing, John Jackson. “It makes sense, with our Delta joint venture, to start service there now. Delta is growing fast in Boston and adding an Asia flight will help them solidify their position as Boston’s number 1 global airline.”

Delta TechOps, Korean Air Maintenance & Engineering partner to explore MRO services, share operational best practices

Delta TechOps and Korean Air Maintenance & Engineering are partnering to share maintenance and operational data as well as to explore reciprocal maintenance activities between both MRO organizations.

This work builds on the joint venture partnership between Delta Air Lines and Korean Air that offers customers world-class travel benefits across one of the most comprehensive route networks in the trans-Pacific market.

Former Korean Air boss dies

Photo Getty

Cho Yang-ho, the former chairman and CEO of Korean Air has died just a few weeks after the board of the beleaguered airline ended his 27-year long role of leading the company.

He died on Monday of chronic lung issues in a hospital in Los Angeles hospital, which came as a surprise to many, as details of his health condition was not widely known. Cho had surgery for lung disease some time ago, although his condition is understood to have worsened over the last couple of years.

More international routes to Boston, from Delta Air Lines and partners

Delta & partners will offer up to 149 daily departures to more than 50 destinations from Boston-Logan in 2019

Photo Delta / KLM

The international offering to and from Boston International Airport is growing rapidly, in the last 24 hours two new international flights to Logan Airport, thanks to Delta and joint venture partners KLM and Virgin Atlantic — setting the stage for an exciting year of growth and expansion for Delta in the Northeast.

KLM – Amsterdam

On March 31, KLM began flying between Boston and Amsterdam, adding to the two daily flights to Amsterdam already operated at Logan Airport by Delta. KLM CEO Pieter Elbers joined officials from Massport, Delta leaders, customers and employees at the airport in a ribbon-cutting ceremony ahead of the outbound flight across the Atlantic.

Photo Delta / KLM

Year 1 of the Delta-Korean Air joint venture........focus on customers.

Steve Sear, Delta's President – International and Executive Vice President of Global Sales, spoke with Delta News Hub one year into the approval of the airline's joint venture with Korean Air about what customers, employees and others can look forward to in 2019 and beyond.

Delta News Hub:  We're coming up on the first anniversary of Delta's trans-Pacific joint venture with Korean Air. What stands out to you as the biggest achievements in this first year?

Steve Sear: It's been a great year and we're just getting started. As Ed Bastian said a year ago, it's an exciting time for our customers and that will continue to be the case. We have our sights set on furthering our position as the No. 1 trans-Pacific joint venture. The JV with Korea Air has been one of our fastest-integrating partnerships, thanks to the close cooperation with the Korean Air team and our shared focus on customers and vision to grow together. It has been impressive to see the benefits of unlocking the potential of this partnership that spans nearly two decades, since the foundation of the SkyTeam alliance. And from a Delta perspective, this partnership is enabling us to grow across the Pacific for the first time since 2012.

Special addition to Korean Air's livery to celebrate its 50th birthday

To celebrate its 50th anniversary the leading airline of Korea, Korean Air has announced that it will paint a special celebratory emblem and slogan on ten of its aircraft.

The special aircraft livery will depict the number 50 with a plane flying over it alongside the slogan “Beyond 50 Years of Excellence”. The number 50 symbolises Korean Air’s 50th anniversary and features a stylised taegeuk design. Taegeuk is the iconic mark of the Korean Flag.

The slogan “Beyond 50 Years of Excellence” emphasises Korean Air’s contributions during the last 50 years to Korea’s airline industry, and also highlights the national carrier’s ambitions to make the next 50 years even better for the company. Employees of Korean Air took part in the design and selection process of the emblem and slogan.

Korean Air steward awarded £14,000 over 'nut rage incident'

The airline at the centre of the 'nut rage incident' Korean Air has now been ordered to pay around $18,000  that is about  £14,000 to the cabin crew member who served the nuts to the airline's bosses daughter in a bag rather than a bowl.

According to details revealed, flight attendant Park Chang-jin was forced to apologise on his knees after he served the bagged nuts to the daughter of the airline's chairman.  She then also made the flight return to the departure gate where Park Chang-jin was thrown off the aircraft.

The airline also demoted Mr Park, which also caused a drop in his earnings. He claimed that his demotion to an ordinary member cabin crew was an unfair punishment given to him when he spoke out in the media about the incident. 

He had sued the airline principle for the "physical and psychological suffering" that had been caused to him. On Wednesday, December 19th a court agreed with him and warded him the damages, which were significantly lower than he had requested.

However, the court didn't agree on the demotion, saying the airline was within its rights to reassign him to a lower position.

Korean Air to ditch in-house data management and go all in for cloud based services from Amazon

Earlier this week it was announced that Korean Air Lines was going to put all of its digital capabilities in the hands of Amazon Web Services, Inc part of the giant Amazon.com company.  The deal will see the Korean air carrier move all its infrastructure to AWS, going all-in on the world’s leading cloud and selecting AWS as its standard for machine learning workloads. 

Korean Air plans to migrate everything it has, including its website, loyalty program, flight operations, and other mission-critical operations—to AWS and plans to shut down its own data centres over the next three years.

“The decision to go all-in on AWS marks the start of Korean Air’s digital transformation, becoming one of the first Korean business conglomerates and the first Asia Pacific airline to make this mass migration to the cloud,” said Mike Clayville, Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Sales at AWS.

“We’re excited to begin our 10-year relationship with AWS, using their unmatched breadth of functionality to innovate in the cloud and leveraging AWS’s hands-on support and dedicated resources that understand the challenges that we face,” said Kenny Chang, CIO of Korean Air. “We are overhauling our entire IT infrastructure in the next three years, moving all of our websites, cargo management, flight control systems, and enterprise resource planning and other systems to AWS." 

Korean Air boss indicted on embezzlement charges...

The woes at Korean Air Lines continue as its Chairman Cho Yang-ho was indicted on Monday 15th October on a number of charges that include embezzlement and breach of trust.

The South Korean prosecutor's office advised on Monday said Cho Yang-ho pocketed 19.6 billion won that's around $17 million in commission between 2003 and 2018 after setting up a trading company to broker specialist aircraft equipment and in-flight duty-free goods purchase deals for Korean Air, which cost the airline the same amount. 

More new routes from Korean Air

Korean Air has confirmed that further route network expansion will see the airline start new flights to Zagreb and to Boston.    

The airline will be serving the jewel of Croatia's Adriatic coast, Zagreb from the 1st September this year and will operate the route three times a week. The flights will depart Seoul Incheon at 1105 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays., arriving in Zagreb at 1545.  The return flight departs Croatia at 1720 to land back in Seoul the following morning at 1130 local time.  The service is scheduled for Airbus A330-200 and takes between 11 hours and 10 minutes and 11 hours and 40 minutes depending on direction and weather conditions. 

Boston will become Korean Air's 11th destination in the USA and this new route will start on 12 April next year.  The airline advises they will operate the route initially five times a week, however, this may increase if there is sufficient demand. The schedule for the new flight to Boston's Logan Airport will operate on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The flight to Boston leaves at a convenient 0930 to arrive Boston 1030 while the flight back to Korea departs the US city at 1330 to land back at Korean Air's home base at 1650 the following day.

The airline has scheduled its new Boeing 787-9's for the route that features six First Class sleeper suites, 18 Prestige business class sleeper suites, and 245 seats in economy class.

The new Boston flight works in tandem with the new Minneapolis/St. Paul-Seoul service that Delta is launching in 2019, which form part of the expansion of the two carriers joint venture launched back in May that opens up more onward destinations for the two airlines.