Korean Air’s Boeing 787-9 passenger jet / Courtesy of Korean Air
Korean Air faces a rising upkeep capability problem, as its acquisition of Asiana Airways creates a fleet of greater than 230 plane at a time when heavy-maintenance slots stay more and more troublesome to safe throughout Asia.
The built-in service, scheduled to launch in December, will function the bigger fleet and make use of greater than 4,000 upkeep staff. It can require extra airframe, engine and element upkeep that have to be dealt with internally or secured via exterior upkeep, restore and operations (MRO) suppliers.
Nevertheless, constrained international MRO capability and a scarcity of worldwide heavy-maintenance slots have change into a fabric operational threat to Korean Air. Securing wide-body base-maintenance slots has change into notably troublesome throughout Southeast Asia.
Korean Air is responding by increasing its personal capabilities. In November final yr, the airline and Incheon Worldwide Airport Corp. (IIAC) agreed to speculate 176 billion received ($130 million) to construct a next-generation upkeep hangar on the airport’s Excessive-Tech Aviation Complicated.
The ability will have the ability to accommodate two wide-body plane and one narrow-body plane concurrently, with development scheduled to start in 2027 and operations deliberate for late 2029.
A Boeing 777 passenger plane is transformed right into a freighter at a cargo plane conversion facility in Incheon Worldwide Airport’s Excessive-Tech Aviation Complicated on Yeongjong Island, Aug. 6. Joint Press Corps
The airline can also be strengthening its engine MRO enterprise. A brand new engine upkeep heart on Incheon’s Yeongjong Island is scheduled for completion in 2027, with trade estimates suggesting it might generate as much as 150 billion received in annual working revenue as soon as totally operational.
However the enlargement will take time, leaving the service uncovered to capability constraints through the integration interval. Korea’s MRO infrastructure additionally stays restricted. Greater than 60 p.c of Korea’s plane upkeep demand was dealt with abroad in 2024, amounting to about 2.4 trillion received out of a complete 3.9 trillion received, in keeping with knowledge from IIAC.
The airport operator has recognized the dearth of home capability, together with excessive labor prices and enormous upfront investments as key elements behind the nation’s heavy reliance on abroad MRO suppliers.
That dependence might change into extra important, because the merged service seeks to combine two fleets whereas sustaining excessive plane utilization.
The acquisition additionally brings their three low-cost service subsidiaries — Jin Air, Air Busan and Air Seoul — underneath a single working construction, additional growing the variety of plane that may require coordinated upkeep help.
“For Korean Air, the important thing process is to make sure steady upkeep operations following the merger with Asiana to shortly cut back reliance on scarce abroad capability with out creating operational bottlenecks through the integration,” an official from the trade mentioned.
