``Secure the Golden Route of 150 Billion Won Per Year!``

``Secure the golden flight route of 150 billion won per year!``

The Korean Airline (KAL) and the Asiana Airline (AA) are competing with each other for new international flight routes scheduled to be distributed by the end of July. In particular, since not only the flight route`s annual occupancy rate reaches almost 90 percent even during off-peak season, but also they are expecting the `World Cup boom`, the two airline companies are fighting for a life-or-death battle to secure 21 new roundtrip flights between Seoul and Tokyo. It is estimated that there would be average ticket sale of 150 billion won per year.

Both companies are competing to receive more number of flights presenting more advantageous statistics for themselves.

The AA is insisting that it is unfair for them to have only 5 Seoul-Tokyo flights, while the KAL has 28 flights. They assert that by receiving all 21 flights this time, they have to balance against the KAL with at least seven flights per week saying that they have been operating 5 flights since the company began its service 13 years ago.

Stressing the government’s `basic principle on airline policy` that decided to give the long-distance routes to the KAL, and the short-distance routes to the Asiana, the AA is demanding the government to give the Tokyo route to them, which is a short-distance route.

Chung Sang-Ji, a director of the AA, said, ``Although the KAL seems not to have benefited with the measure to stop receiving new routes since the Guam accident, overall, the AA has been experiencing hard time.``

However, the KAL pointed out by saying, ``The AA has twice the number of flight route to China, a profitable route, and the number of flight to Japan is also same with 17. And weekly number of flight of the AA is 107, about 83 percent of the KAL (129 flights).``

The KAL also said, ``Although we have twice the number of airplanes, the number of total flight has become similar of 328 per week (KAL) vs. 286 (Asiana). In case of the route to Japan, a moneymaking route, it is a life-threatening situation in which the KAL only got 4 more flights comparing to Asiana’s 42.``

Director Kim Ho-Taek said, ``Since our total operation hour per airplane, the most important factor of airliner operation, is 267 hours with the operating profit rate of 0.41 percent, the Asiana’s total operation hour is 307 hours per plane giving the company the operating profit rate of 8.11 percent. Consequently, for this time, a priority on the distribution of the flight routes to Tokyo has to be given toward the KAL.``

The government has a vague standard on distributing new flights featuring `long-distance KAL`, `short-distance Asiana` and `to consider the peculiarity of the routes for mid-distance`. Thus far, the government has given the two companies both long and short distance routes ignoring the standard. While the AA stressed the principle set by the government, the KAL asserted that ``if we have only long-distance routes without the connection to short-distance lines, the function of the Inchon International Airport as a hub airport will decrease significantly.``

Koo Ja-Ryong bonhong@donga.com