2024-05-09 09:34:37
Korean Air “Queen of the Sky” B747-8i 5 units
Decided to hand over to an American airline for 920 billion won
“Improved efficiency thanks to the sale of very large aircraft”
Speed of introduction of the new generation model “60 units in 8 years”
Authorities clean the fuselage of a B747-8i plane at the Korean Air maintenance hangar at Incheon International Airport in Yeongjongdo.
Korean Air sells five B747-8i, nicknamed the “Queen of the Sky”, to an American airline. It appears to be about getting rid of very large aircraft that have become “money-eating hippos” and improving the efficiency of operating its fleet, while accelerating the liquidation of unnecessary fleets before the merger with Asiana Airlines.
According to the aviation industry, on the 9th, Korean Air held a board meeting on the 8th and decided to sell five B747-8i to the American aerospace company Sierra Nevada Corporation. Korean Air recently announced that it had decided to divest five planes for 918.3 billion won, but did not disclose the specific model due to contractual issues.
According to Korean Air, the company had a total of 9 B747-8i aircraft at the end of the first quarter of this year. If five of them are eliminated successively by 2025 according to the contract, only four will remain. Since the introduction of the B747-8i model in 2015, Korean Air has been deploying it on long-haul routes such as Incheon to New York and Europe.
The B747-8i, manufactured by Boeing in the United States, is the latest model of the B747 series airliner. It is capable of continuous flight for up to 14 hours and is a long-distance aircraft capable of flying up to 15,000 km without intermediate refueling. It uses four engines and can reach a speed of Mach 0.86, the fastest among large airliners.
Thanks to its speed and stability, it was selected as a presidential aircraft and is currently carrying out the “Code One” mission. In 2021, the Moon Jae-in administration signed a 300 billion won lease agreement with Korean Air for the B747-8i model for five years until 2026.
However, the 747-8i has recently become less popular in the aircraft market due to its poor fuel efficiency and difficulty meeting the global trend of increasing carbon emissions. A Korean Air official said: “Boeing will also stop production of the 747 series from 2022, so parts production decreases, so operating costs increase. » This financial burden is why Korean Air put the corresponding equipment up for sale less than 10 years after its introduction.
news/cms/202405/09/news-g.v1.20240509.22b50fc3cee44a9797caa33eb2ed8605_R.jpg" data-width="330" data-height="232"/> enlarge the photo In addition to the 747-8i, Korean Air also plans to carry out partial work on three Airbus A380 ultra-wide planes, called “hotels in the sky.” As the maintenance burden increased and selling became difficult, they chose to dismantle the equipment and filter the parts.
Instead, Korean Air plans to introduce new, more fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly aircraft in the medium to long term. In March this year, Korean Air signed a contract worth 18 trillion won with Airbus to purchase 33 A350s, an advanced mid-to-large aircraft. The A350 is known to not only improve fuel efficiency by 25% compared to similar models, but also reduce carbon emissions by 25%.
Korean Air plans to sequentially introduce 60 new aircraft, including the A350, between the second quarter of 2024 and 2032.
Meanwhile, Korean Air’s preliminary results for the first quarter of this year were recorded at 3.822.5 billion KRW in sales and 436.1 billion KRW in operating profit. This is an increase of 19.6% and 5.1% respectively compared to the first quarter of last year. Net profit was recorded at 345.2 billion won, down 2.9 percent year-on-year. Sales increased by 20% year-on-year due to the rapid recovery of passenger traffic and solid cargo demand, and operating profit also increased by 5% despite reasons such as Increased fuel costs, airport and freight costs and increased labor costs due to salary increases. In contrast, net profit fell 2.9%, reflecting foreign exchange gains and losses due to the weakening won.
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