Korean Air Faces Antitrust Review Over Seat Capacity Commitments

South Korea’s antitrust regulator has begun deliberating allegations that Korean Air and two affiliated carriers failed to meet seat capacity obligations attached to the airline’s takeover of Asiana Airlines.

The Fair Trade Commission said its examiner recommended action against Korean Air, Jin Air and Asiana Airlines over capacity on the route linking Cheongju in central South Korea with the southern resort island of Jeju. The review concerns service between December 2024 and December 2025.

Under conditions imposed on the combination, the carriers were required to offer at least 90 percent of the seats they had provided on designated routes in 2019. The examiner’s report found that the three airlines fell below that threshold on the Cheongju-Jeju route. It recommended penalties for noncompliance and referral of the matter for a criminal investigation.

The findings are not yet a final commission decision. The affected airlines will be given an opportunity to present their defense before the commission rules at a plenary session. That process leaves the ultimate sanctions, if any, to be determined after formal deliberation.

The watchdog is also considering a separate capacity issue involving routes from Incheon and Busan to Guam. Korean Air and four affiliated airlines asked for the minimum capacity requirement on those services to be reduced to 70 percent of 2019 levels from 90 percent, citing a decline in Guam’s popularity as a tourism destination.

The examiner recommended rejecting that request, concluding that the circumstances did not satisfy the standard for changing the merger conditions. The two proceedings underscore the regulator’s continuing oversight of route capacity after the consolidation of South Korea’s two largest full-service airlines.

Seat requirements were included in the takeover conditions to limit the risk that reduced competition would translate into fewer travel options on affected routes. The latest review therefore tests how strictly those safeguards will be enforced as Korean Air moves closer to completing the integration.

Asiana currently operates as a Korean Air subsidiary. The two carriers are scheduled to merge into a single corporate entity on Dec. 17. The commission’s eventual decisions could affect the companies’ compliance burden during the final stage of that process and clarify how much flexibility airlines have when demand shifts from the pre-pandemic benchmark year.