A lot has happened and changed over the past four years since Korean Air announced, on November 16th 2020, its intention to acquire Asiana Airlines. Finally, in December 2024 a full 4 years later the South Korea has its mega airline ready to take on even more head on other aviation giants in Asia and beyond.
Asiana Airlines Becomes a Korean Air Subsidiary
The deal has been in the making for quite some time. The issue wasn’t getting the parties to agree on the deal terms, the time consuming part of the entire endeavor was getting regulatory approval from all competition committees around the world in markets the two airlines both serve. Because of the magnitude of the two carriers and their extremely large global presence, especially in terms of cargo operations they had to get approval from the EU, US and many other countries.
Some concessions had to be made in order to get the green light for the deal, particularly from the EU. The European Commission is always very touchy about maintaining competitiveness on routes in and out of Europe. Therefore Korean Air had to transfer some of its slots to some of Europe’s prime destinations to a competitor, namely the low-cost carrier T’Way. T’Way has since May 2024 launched services to:
- Paris CDG
- Rome Fiumicino
- Barcelona
- Frankfurt
However, with all that done the merger is final and the airlines are in the process of becoming one entity. Korean Air on December 12th 2024 acquired a total of 131,578,947 Asiana Airlines shares making up 63.88% of the company’s equity. The total investment to close the deal tallied up to just above the 1 billion USD or just under 1 billion Euro (1.5W Trillion South Korean Won).
So Now, What’s Next For The New Merged Asiana-Korean Air?
Well now comes the interesting part, operationally speaking. The two airlines currently operate as standalone companies and will have to undergo a massive integration process. A process which will cover all of the airlines’ operations spanning from:
- Staffing
- Fleet
- Airport Facilities
- Airport Operations (Korean Air operates from T2 and Asiana T1 at the moment)
- Network Planning
- Loyalty Programs
Korean Air management seems confident it will be able to complete the process within the next two years. We should look forward to a unified operation by the end of 2026.
It seems there is no intention to reduce staffing levels, meaning that this unlike many other mergers, is trying to simply increase fire power rather than streamline operations as much as possible. It is, in other words, an expansionist merger.
What will change for passengers is that on many routes there will now be only one Korean airline option to travel with. Particularly if you want to fly a full service airline. That might pinch the pocket a little more as I’m sure that prices will get a little boost.
Finally, another aspect that will inevitably change on the passenger’s side of things is the loyalty program. The airlines, just as Air India recently did with Vistara, will have to merge SkyPass and Asiana Club. No details on that yet, but well have more to talk about during 2025 when there will be some announcement.