Korean Air’s Boeing 787-10 jet / Courtesy of Korean Air
Korean Air was ordered to revise its mileage conversion program with Asiana Airways by supplementing a mileage redemption program for in-flight seats, the nation’s antitrust watchdog mentioned Monday.
The Truthful Commerce Fee (FTC) urged Korean Air to submit revised measures on the administration of bonus seats and seat upgrades utilizing mileage. Korean Air has lower than a month to report its up to date measures.
That is the second time the authority has put the brakes on Korean Air’s proposed mileage integration plan. In June, the FTC rejected Korean Air’s preliminary mileage conversion proposal on issues that it didn’t adequately safeguard Asiana prospects’ pursuits.
Three months later, Korean Air submitted a rectified measure that may enable Asiana prospects to transform their flight-accrued mileage at a 1-to-1 ratio. Korean Air additionally supplied to use a 1-to-0.82 conversion ratio for Asiana prospects’ companion mileage earned from bank card rewards.
“We view that the mileage conversion plan ought to be mounted in step with the expectations of the general public, so the FTC will assessment the proposed integration plans extra strictly and completely,” an official from the FTC mentioned.
Korean Air is scheduled to launch a converged mega service in 2027 after finalizing its operational merger with Asiana by the tip of 2026. The mileage conversion between each airways has drawn eager consideration from the general public, as the difficulty is linked instantly with the pursuits of tens of hundreds of thousands of consumers.
“After Korean Air submits its up to date integration measures to the FTC, we are going to conduct a assessment in a approach that additional strengthens the rights and pursuits of consumers,” the official from the watchdog mentioned.
On the identical day, Korean Air was additionally slapped with a high-quality of 5.88 billion gained ($4 million) for violating a precondition for the approval of its integration with Asiana.
The rule mandates that Korean Air and Asiana keep the variety of their in-flight seats at a degree of greater than 90 %, in contrast with the identical interval in 2019. Asiana was additionally fined 580 million gained for a similar cause by the FTC.
The FTC investigation confirmed that the variety of each airways’ provided seats for routes between Incheon and Frankfurt between Dec. 12, 2024, and March 28, 2025, was solely 69.5 % of the full recorded in the identical interval in 2019.
The watchdog fined each airways, saying that they might unfairly profit from airfare will increase by lowering the variety of flight seats for sure routes.
