Asiana Airlines

Asiana Airlines HL7414 in Frankfurt, Germany

Asiana Airlines () is one of South Korea's two major airlines. It is both smaller and younger than Korean Air. Asiana's headquarters and overseas hub are located at Incheon International Airport and its domestic hub is at Gimpo International Airport (formerly Kimpo International Airport).

History

The airline was established on 17 February 1988 and started operations in December 1988 with flights to Bangkok. It was formed by the KumhoAsiana Group (formerly Kumho Group) as part of the South Korean government's policy to create a second flag carrier. The South Korean government has given its approval for foreign ownership of the airline to increase from 20% to 50%.

The airline is owned by Private investors (30.53%), Kumho Industrial (29.51%), Kumho Petrochemical (15.05%), foreign investors (11.9%), Korea Development Bank (7.18%), others (5.83%) and employs 6,411 staff (at January 2005).

Asiana Airlines recently (on 1 February 2006) changed its CI(Corporate Identity) as parent company Kumho Asiana Group decided to unify different CIs of its divisions. Also, Asiana Airlines is considering of changing uniform of flight attendants and livery of the aircraft by 2008, the company's 20th anniversary.

Destinations

Code Sharing

The airline has code-share agreements with the following airlines (as of May 2006):

{|valign|
*Air Canada
*Air China
*Air New Zealand
*All Nippon Airways
*China Eastern Airlines
*China Southern Airlines
*Lufthansa|valign|
*Qantas
*Qatar Airways
*Singapore Airlines
*South African Airways
*Thai Airways International
*United Airlines