Due to low passenger demand, Korean Air plans to change passenger aircraft to cargo aircraft

Report by : Gan Yung Chyan

                  / KUCINTA SETIA

Korean Air announced on 20 July 2020 that in order to solve the problem of reduced passenger demand due to the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, it plans to transform some Boeing 777-300ER passenger aircraft into freighters.

Yonhap News Agency quoted a spokesperson for Korean Air as saying that South Korea’s largest air carrier plans to dismantle some of the seats in 26 Boeing 777-300ER airliners for cargo. After obtaining approval from South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and Boeing, Korean Air will begin to transform the passenger aircraft next month. The cargo capacity of each passenger plane after the transformation is expected to increase by 10 tons to 34 tons.

Korean Air has 143 passenger planes and 23 cargo planes, and both passenger traffic and revenue have decreased due to the epidemic. Since 11 June 2020, Korean Air has begun to put cargo into cargo bags that can be fixed on passenger aircraft seats and use passenger aircraft to carry cargo. The airline had a net loss of 736.86 billion won (about 4.29 billion yuan) in the first quarter of this year, compared with a net loss of 116.95 billion won (680 million yuan) in the same period in 2019.