All the Golden Routes Allocated to Asiana Airlines

On August 1, Asiana Airlines won all the 21 additional flights of Seoul-Tokyo, which are known as `best golden routes` out of the new airline routes.

Korean Air, who has not joined the routes allocation for 1.5 years, won the navigation rights for the Seoul-Hong Kong route for passengers and cargos and 14 other routes, which can reach some cities of China and Japan.

Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MOCT) announced, ``Considering the characteristics of the routes, airliners` preferences, contributions into market expansion, and frequencies of the routine flights, we have allocated 73 navigation rights per week, including 16 new and additional routes, onto Korean Air and Asiana Airlines.``

Since Asiana Airlines has won the rights of 21 additional flights per week of Seoul-Tokyo during this allocation, it will be able to fly 26 times per week from the current 5 times per week, starting from next May. In addition, they won an additional flight right of Seoul-Hochimin (250 seats), which will end up with 5 flights per week.

MOCT said, ``For Seoul-Tokyo route, Korean Air has 28 flights per week and Asiana has 5 flights now. The flight frequency difference between the two airliners has been too big to allow for fair competition. Although all the flights have been allocated onto Asiana Airlines this time, we will allocate potential navigation rights of 7 flights per week to Korean Air once the additional navigation rights are obtained in Korea-Japan Flight meeting scheduled in November. ``

Korean Air won the routes of 8 additional flights of Jeju.Pusan-Tokyo, Seoul-Nikata (2 flights), Seoul-Okayama (1 flight), Seoul-Akita(3 flights), Seoul-Sunyang (5 flights), Seoul-Chingtao (7 flights), Seoul-Tenchin (4 flights), Pusan-Shanghai (4 flights), and Chungju-Sunyang (3 flights). In addition, they won the exclusive navigation rights of 4 passenger flights (1200 seats) and 200 ton cargos per week of Seoul-Hong Kong, 4 flights (1100 seats) per week of Chibang-Hong Kong, 2 flights per week of Korea-Mongol, and 2 cargo flights per week of Korea-Belgium.

Korean Air opposed to this allocation, saying, ``It is a prejudiced airline policy to favor Asiana Airlines`. Asiana Airlines also complained, saying, ``It is against the rule in that the accident-prone airliner has not received any disadvantages in the route allocation.``

jsonhng@donga.com