Korean Air has become over the years one of the main players in air travel in the far east. As the economy of South Korea developed so did its national carrier. Today the airline carries millions of passengers every single year to 98 destinations in 39 countries around the world. Personally, this is one of my favourite airlines to fly with as I find the in flight service always positive. So today we’ll look deeper in to the structure of Korean Air’s fleet in 2022.
The Korean Air Fleet in 2022
First of all the main distinction tom make when looking at the Korean Air fleet is setting apart the freighter fleet from the passenger fleet. The airline along with the passenger operations operates an extensive network of cargo flights.
So that’s exactly what we’ll be doing in this analysis. We’ll look first at the passenger fleet and then at the airline’s cargo fleet.
The Passenger Fleet
Korean Air’s passenger fleet operates both Airbus and Boeing aircraft with the latter providing the majority of the planes. Korean Air has a very limited number of domestic destinations which are often served by A220s. The fleet of 24 737s covers the remainder of the domestic flights and many of the short to medium range international routes.
Korean Air uses its fleet of wide body aircraft for high demand medium range flights and all its long haul flights. However the Korean flag carrier has gradually brought to a halt its A380 operations.
Korean Air’s Boeing Passenger Fleet
- 31 Active Boeing 777s of which:
- 25 Active Boeing 777-300ER
- 3 Active Boeing 777-300
- 3 Active Boeing 777-200ER (3 Others are parked since July 2022)
- 1 737-700
- 2 737-800
- 16 737-900
- 5 737MAX 8
Korean Air’s Airbus Passenger Fleet
- 5 Airbus A380
- 1 Airbus A321neo (with 2 more on order)
- 25 Airbus A330 of which:
- 5 A330-200
- 20 A330-300
- 10 Airbus A220-300
The Issue: An Ageing A330 Fleet
One big issue the Korean airline will need to tackle sooner rather than later is the ageing A330 fleet. The average age of the 25 Airbus A330 in Korean Air’s fleet is above 17 years.
The airline will need to invest soon to replace this workhorse that serves both long range routes and high demand shorter connections. So make sure to come back regularly to find out if there is any news from the two major aircraft manufacturers regarding Korean Air.
Korean Air’s Cargo Fleet
To complete this analysis of the KE fleet we need to look at the airline’s cargo fleet. KE is very active even in terms of freight operations as you can see from the size of its cargo fleet.
The airline operates 2 aircraft types for its cargo operations. These are Boeing 747 and 777. Specifically in these variants:
- 4 Boeing 747-400F
- 7 Boeing 747-8F
- 12 Boeing 777F
